Tag Archive for: pakistan

Facebook : Taking Action Against Hackers in Pakistan and Syria

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  • We took action against four distinct groups of hackers from Pakistan and Syria.
  • The malicious activity from Pakistan targeted people in Afghanistan.
  • Three separate hacking groups from Syria targeted a wide range of people in Syria, including civil society, journalists, humanitarian organizations and the anti-regime military forces. Each of these three hacking groups had links to the Syrian government, including Syria’s Air Force Intelligence.

Today, we are sharing actions we’ve taken against four distinct groups of hackers in Pakistan and Syria over the past several months. To disrupt these malicious groups, we disabled their accounts, blocked their domains from being posted on our platform, shared information with our industry peers, security researchers and law enforcement, and alerted the people who we believe were targeted by these hackers.

The group from Pakistan – known in the security industry as SideCopy – targeted people who were connected to the previous Afghan government, military, and law enforcement in Kabul. In Syria, we removed three distinct hacker groups with links to the Syrian government. The first network in Syria – known as the Syrian Electronic Army – targeted human rights activists, journalists and other groups opposing the ruling regime. We linked this activity to Syria’s Air Force Intelligence. The second network from Syria – known in the security community as APT-C-37 – targeted people linked to the Free Syrian Army and former military personnel who had since joined the opposition forces. Our investigation linked this activity by APT-C-37 to what we believe is a separate unit in Syria’s Air Force Intelligence. Finally, the third network from Syria targeted minority groups, activists, opposition, Kurdish journalists, activists, members of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), and Syria Civil Defense or White Helmets, a volunteer-based humanitarian organization. Our investigation found links between this activity and individuals associated with the Syrian government.

Meta’s threat intelligence analysts and security experts work to find and stop a wide…

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Be on the lookout for a hacking attack in Pakistan, MP cyber cops tell the media

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Cyber-attackers who identified themselves as the “Pakistan Cyber Army” have hacked the website of India’s top police agency, officials said on Saturday. The website of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was hacked by programmers who left a message saying that the attack was in revenge for similar Indian assaults on Pakistani sites, Press Trust of India said. The hackers signed their message on the Indian police website: “Long Live Pakistan.”

The spokeswoman said she could not comment on Indian media reports that more than 200 other Indian sites had also been attacked by Pakistani hackers.

CBI authorities said they were working to restore the site, which offered information to the public.

“We came to know the CBI site had been compromised Friday night,” the spokeswoman told AFP, asking not to be named. “It will take us a couple of days to restore the site.”

The CBI has “registered a case” and is investigating the attack, she said.

She said she could not immediately say who was responsible for the attack.

The message posted on the CBI site said the attack was “in response to the Pakistani websites hacked by ‘Indian Cyber Army’,” the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

“Hacked hahaa funny,” the message said. “Let us see what you investigating agency so called CBI can do” (sic).

Hackers had also infiltrated the server of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which maintains most of the government’s websites, PTI reported. In August, a group also calling itself the “Pakistan Cyber Army” hacked into the website of independent Indian MP Vijay Mallya, a flamboyant liquor baron, who is also head of Kingfisher Airlines.

The group claims to have hacked a number of Indian websites in recent years, including India’s state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, in retaliation for Indian hackers accessing Pakistan sites. Indian IT specialists have long lamented what they say is a lack of awareness about Internet security across the country, including in the corridors of power.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, said it would have been easy for attackers to get into the CBI public site as it was…

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TECHNOLOGY: TOWARDS A REAL DIGITAL PAKISTAN – Newspaper

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At the end of May, Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated the Ehsaas Saving Wallets initiative in Islamabad, a programme that will bring women into the financial inclusion net by allowing female beneficiaries the use of digital wallets for savings and cash withdrawals.

“As the pool of bank accounts increases, poverty decreases,” said the prime minister. “And when you bring women into the financial system, they are able to save money, start businesses and control their own lives.”

Given that only 18 percent of women in Pakistan are account holders, this initiative aims to widen the financial net for women. However, access to mobile money wallets requires access to mobile and internet services. Increasing the number of digital wallets for women may, therefore, prove to be a Herculean task, considering that Pakistan suffers from a 38 percent gender gap in mobile phone ownership (the highest in South Asia) and a 49 percent gender gap in internet usage.

The problem doesn’t end there. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Inclusive Internet Index, Pakistan has consistently ranked last for internet inclusivity in South Asia, and has been in the bottom three places for all of Asia over the past four years.

Source:PTA, SBP

Enter Covid-19. While the pandemic has had a devastating effect on societies and economies, it has provided an unexpected jumpstart to digital Pakistan that deserves highlighting. Both in Pakistan and across the globe, digital solutions for communication, learning, health, finance and other services prevented large-scale transmission of the virus, while enabling connectivity during periods of mass lockdowns. Notable examples in education include the large-scale transfer of students to online communication platforms, such as Zoom, and tele-school initiatives, such as Taleem Ghar and TeleTaleem.

Pakistan’s digital response to the pandemic has laid bare the spectrum of issues that prevent digital connectivity in the country. How can the country move towards a more connected and inclusive digital space?

However, the pandemic has also made it evident that these digital solutions are only possible for a select few. Covid-19 has…

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Indian cyber-espionage activity rising amid growing rivalry with China, Pakistan

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Cyber warfare: a Bollywood special

India is expanding it's state-sponsored hacking and cyber espionage activity

ANALYSIS India is sometimes overlooked by some in the threat intelligence community, even though the South Asian nation has advanced cyber capabilities – not least a huge pool of talent.

The country boasts a large number of engineers, programmers, and information security specialists, but not all of this tech talent was put to good use, even before the Covid-19 pandemic cast a shadow over the global economy.

Their somewhat limited employment prospects are said to have created a swarm of underground Indian threat actors eager to show off their hacking talents and make money – a resource that the Indian government might be able to tap into in order to bolster its own burgeoning cyber-espionage resources.

India is in catch-up mode for now, but has the technical resources to make rapid progress.

Who is being targeted by Indian hacking groups?

Geopolitical factors have fueled an increase in cyber threat activity both originating from and targeting India.

Experts quizzed by The Daily Swig were unanimous in saying that the most important target of Indian cyber-espionage by far is Pakistan – a reflection of the decades-long struggle over the disputed region of Kashmir.

China, India’s neighbour and an ally of Pakistan, is also a top target of state-sponsored Indian cyber-espionage.

Paul Prudhomme, head of threat intelligence advisory at IntSights, told The Daily Swig: “Indian cyber-espionage differs from that of other top state-sponsored threats, such as those of Russia and China, in the less ambitious geographic scope of their attacks.”

RECOMMENDED H2C smuggling named top web hacking technique of 2020

Other common targets of Indian hacking activity include other nations of the South Asian subcontinent, such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. Indian espionage groups may sometimes expand their horizons further to occasional targets in Southeast Asia or the Middle East.

Indian cyber-espionage groups typically seek information on Pakistan’s government, military, and other organizations to inform and improve its own national security posture.

But this is far from the only game in town.

For example, one Indian…

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