Indian Army issues new Internet advisory after Pakistan’s Smeshapp exercise

Early this year, all news outlets in India were dissecting the attack at an air force base in Pathankot. From veterans and defence expert to citizens, many were wondering how an attack of that scale managed to penetrate a high security zone such as Pathankot.

Move over a couple of months, and we read reports of how Pakistan had managed to get access to vital critical information by a very simple trick. Exploit security vulnerabilities in application permissions. The modus operandi was rather simple. On the face of it, rogue elements created an app called Smeshapp (which has since been pulled down from the app store). It appeared to be a communication app just like WhatsApp. However, in seeking permissions far beyond what it needed, the app would then send requests to the contact list of the infected phone.

And that’s how the database of vulnerable users just grew. Unfortunately, that list included people in the defence force with critical information about personnel locations in real time and the ability to record sensitive conversations by accessing the microphone on the device. To know more about how the app worked, you could read here.

According to a report by IBNLive, the Indian Army has now issued an advisory that asks soldiers to stay away from the Internet. In addition, the advisory mentions that personnel must refrain from watching pornographic content on Facebook or other social networking sites. In addition, the advisory asks personnel not to use their photos in uniform as display pictures on WhatsApp or Facebook among others.

It’s interesting that pornography has been categorically mentioned. It is worth noting that according to Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, terrorist organisations such as the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda have been using platforms such as eBay, Reddit as well as pornographic videos to transfer coded messages for their next operation.