The Indian Intelligence warns China is spying through 42 mobile apps

The Indian Intelligence warns China is spying its troops through 42 mobile apps, for this reason, the Intelligence Bureau asked soldiers to delete them.

The Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) has warned that Chinese cyber spies are collecting confidential information about the Indian security installations through its popular mobile phone apps and devices.

The Intelligence Bureau issued an advisory to the troops posted at the international border.

Many Indian cybersecurity experts have raised concerns about the possible espionage attempts by the Chinese military intelligence agencies.

“According to reports, the advisory issued by the DIG (Intelligence) has directed the troops posted along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to either delete a number of mobile applications from their smartphones or reformat the devices altogether to guard against online espionage attempts from across the border.” reported the website Zeenews.india.com.

The advisory includes a list of about 42 popular Chinese mobile apps, including WeChat, Truecaller, Weibo, UC Browser and UC News, that according to the Indian intelligence pose a serious threat to the security of the state.

The Indian intelligence suspect that these apps transmitting sensitive personal data to the Chinese Government.

The fresh advisory was issued while the troops from both sides continue to maintain high alertness levels along the LAC.

The intelligence agencies regularly warn the armed forces to avoid using Chinese apps to avoid the leakage of confidential information to a hostile state like China.

The IAF, for example, suggested its staff and their families to avoid using Chinese Xiaomi smartphones.

“The Army, as well as the central armed police forces like the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, are deployed along the 4,057km LAC, which stretches from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh.” continues the Zee Media Bureau.

“The IAF, for instance, had earlier asked all its officers and airmen as well as their families to avoid using Chinese Xiaomi smartphones and notebooks on the ground that they could transfer user data to remote servers located in China.”

The warning from IB is related to Chinese mobile apps for both Android and IoS OSs.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – China, Indian Intelligence)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.