New Delhi: The Union Home Ministry has issued advisory cautioning armed personnel to delete Chinese apps and format their mobile phones.
The advisory was issued on the directives of R& AW and NTRO due to possible threats of Cyber attacks. The Chinese apps which were listed in the advisory include TrueCaller, Weibo, We Chat, UC Browser, UC News, and Baidu maps.
This is not the first time that Indian agencies has faced Cyber threat from across the borders. India faced its biggest attack in 2012 when ITBP was compromised.
Also, a phishing attack in 2012 had compromised SPG.
Sources from NTRO had said that “The advanced security liaison had been compromised and the NTRO had pointed this out to the SPG in writing. The security breach which is considered extremely serious was hushed up because the SPG insisted they have been using stand alone or air gapped computers which are not connected to the internet.”
Use of these Chinese apps can be a threat to data security of personnel and can have negative implications on security.