Alterations in Personal Data Protection Bill

Introduction

In the age of social media, the news can spread like wildfire. A recent viral claim contained that police have started a nationwide scheme of free travel service for women at night. It stated that any woman who is alone and cannot find a vehicle to go home between 10 PM and 06 AM can contact the provided numbers and request a free vehicle. The viral message further contained the request to share and forward this information to everyone to get the women to know about the free vehicle service offered by police at night. However, upon fact check the claim was found to be misleading.

Social Impact of Misleading Information

The fact that such misleading information gets viral at a fast speed is because of its ability to impact and influence people through emotional resonance. Especially during a time when women's safety is a topic discussed in media sensationalism due to recently highlighted rape or sexual violence incidents, such fake viral claims often spark widespread public concern, causing emotional resonance to people and they unknowingly share or forward such messages in the spike of emotional and sensational appeal contained in such messages. The emotional nature of these viral texts often overrides scepticism, leading to immediate sharing without verification. 

Such nature of viral messages often tends to bring people to protest, raise awareness and create support networks, but in spite of emotional resonance people get targeted by misinformation and become the unintended superspreaders of fake news fueled by emotional and social media-driven reactions. Women’s safety in society is a sensitive topic and when people discover such viral claims to be misleading and fake, it often hurts the sentiments of society leading to significant social impacts, including distrust in social media, unnecessary panic and confusion.

CyberPeace Policy Vertical Advisory for Social Media Users

1. Think before Sharing: All netizens must practice caution while sharing anything and double-check its authenticity before sharing/forwarding or reposting it on your social media stories.
2. Don't be unintended superspreaders of Misinformation: Misinformation with emotional resonance and widespread sharing by netizens can lead to them becoming "superspreaders of misinformation" and making it viral quickly. Hence you must avoid such unintended consequences by following the best practices of being vigilant and informed by reliable sources. 
3. Exercise vigilance and scepticism: It is important that netizens exercise vigilance and they build cognitive abilities to recognise the red flags of misleading information. You can do so by following the official communication channels, looking for any discrepancy in the content of susceptible information and double-checking its authenticity before sharing it with anyone. 
4. Verify the information from official sources: Follow the official communication channels of concerned authorities for any kind of information, circulars, notifications etc. In case of finding any piece of information to be susceptible or misleading, intimate it to the relevant authority and the fact-checking organizations. 
5. Stay in touch with expert organizations: Cybersecurity experts and civil society organisations possess the unique blend of large-scale impact potential and technical expertise. Netizens can stay updated about recent developments in the tech-policy sphere and learn about internet best practices, and measures to counter misinformation through methods such as prebunking, debunking and more. 

Connect with CyberPeace

As an expert organisation, we have the ability to educate and empower huge numbers, along with the skills and policy acumen needed to be able to not just make people aware of the problem but also teach them how to solve it for themselves. At CyberPeace we regularly produce fact-check reports, blogs & advisories, and insights on prebunking & debunking measures and capacity-building programs with the aim of empowering netizens at the heart of our initiatives. CyberPeace has established the largest network of CyberPeace Corps volunteers globally. These volunteers play a crucial role in assisting victims, raising awareness, and promoting proactive measures. 

References: 

1. indiatvnews.com/fact-check/fact-check-are-police-providing-free-travel-services-to-women-at-night-know-truth-of-viral-claim-2024-08-28-949280#:~:text=What%20came%20out%20in%20fact,be%20cautious%20of%20these%20claims

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Executive Summary:

A viral image circulating on social media claims to show a Hindu Sadhvi marrying a Muslim man; however, this claim is false. A thorough investigation by the Cyberpeace Research team found that the image has been digitally manipulated. The original photo, which was posted by Balmukund Acharya, a BJP MLA from Jaipur, on his official Facebook account in December 2023, he was posing with a Muslim man in his election office. The man wearing the Muslim skullcap is featured in several other photos on Acharya's Instagram account, where he expressed gratitude for the support from the Muslim community. Thus, the claimed image of a marriage between a Hindu Sadhvi and a Muslim man is digitally altered.

Claims:

An image circulating on social media claims to show a Hindu Sadhvi marrying a Muslim man. 

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Fact Check:

Upon receiving the posts, we reverse searched the image to find any credible sources. We found a photo posted by Balmukund Acharya Hathoj Dham on his facebook page on 6 December 2023. 

This photo is digitally altered and posted on social media to mislead. We also found several different photos with the skullcap man where he was featured.

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We also checked for any AI fabrication in the viral image. We checked using a detection tool named, “content@scale” AI Image detection.  This tool found the image to be 95% AI Manipulated.

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We also checked with another detection tool for further validation named, “isitai” image detection tool. It found the image to be 38.50% of AI content, which concludes to the fact that the image is manipulated and doesn’t support the claim made. Hence, the viral image is fake and misleading.

Conclusion:

The lack of credible source and the detection of AI manipulation in the image explains that the viral image claiming to show a Hindu Sadhvi marrying a Muslim man is false. It has been digitally altered. The original image features BJP MLA Balmukund Acharya posing with a Muslim man, and there is no evidence of the claimed marriage.

• Claim: An image circulating on social media claims to show a Hindu Sadhvi marrying a Muslim man. 
• Claimed on: X (Formerly known as Twitter)
• Fact Check: Fake & Misleading

Introduction

Devices and interconnectivity are the pipelines which drive the data into cyberspace, and in turn, the users consume this data to perform different tasks in the digital age. The security of devices and networks is essential as they are the first defenders of cyberspace. Bad actors often target systems and networks with malware and ransomware, these attacks are differently motivated, but all wreak havoc upon the system and can impact individuals and organisations alike. Mobile users worldwide prefer iOS or Android, but both operating systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks these days. Some of these attacks go undetected for a long time.

Op Triangulation

As reported by Kaspersky, While monitoring the network traffic of their own corporate Wi-Fi network dedicated to mobile devices using the Kaspersky Unified Monitoring and Analysis Platform (KUMA), Kaspersky noticed suspicious activity that originated from several iOS-based phones. Since it is impossible to inspect modern iOS devices from the inside, they created offline backups of the devices in question, inspected them using the Mobile Verification Toolkit’s mvt-ios and discovered traces of compromise. This is known as Operation Triangulation and has been in action since 2019 and got detected in 2023.

The Malware

A portion of the filesystem, including some of the user data and service databases, is included in mobile device backups. The files, directories, and database entries’ timestamps make it possible to reconstruct the events that happened to the device roughly. The “timeline.csv” file created by the mvt-ios software contains a sorted timeline of events that is comparable to the super-timeline utilised by traditional digital forensic tools. Pinpointing particular artefacts that show the compromise using this timeframe. This made it possible to advance the research and reassemble the broad infection sequence:

Through the iMessage service, a message with an attachment containing an exploit is delivered to the target iOS device.

The message initiates a vulnerability that results in code execution without any user input.

The exploit’s code downloads multiple additional stages, including additional exploits for privilege escalation, from the C&C server.

After successful exploitation, a fully functional APT platform is downloaded as the final payload from the C&C server.

The first message and the attachment’s exploit are removed

The lack of persistence support in the harmful toolset is most likely a result of OS restrictions. Multiple devices’ timeframes suggest that after rebooting, they might get infected again. The earliest signs of infection that we found date to 2019. The most recent version of the devices that have been successfully attacked as of the time of writing in June 2023 is iOS 15.7.

The final payload analysis is still ongoing. The programme executes with root rights, implements a set of commands for gathering user and system data, and can run any code downloaded as plugin modules from the C&C server.

Malicious Domains

Using the forensic artefacts, it was possible to identify the domain name set used by the exploits and further malicious stages. They can be used to check the DNS logs for historical information and to identify the devices currently running the malware:

addatamarket[.]net

backuprabbit[.]com

businessvideonews[.]com

cloudsponcer[.]com

datamarketplace[.]net

mobilegamerstats[.]com

snoweeanalytics[.]com

tagclick-cdn[.]com

topographyupdates[.]com

unlimitedteacup[.]com

virtuallaughing[.]com

web-trackers[.]com

growthtransport[.]com

anstv[.]netAns7tv[.]net

Safeguards for iOS users

Despite its world-class safety and privacy architecture, iOS is vulnerable to a few attacks; the following steps can be undertaken to safeguard iOS users –

Keeping Device updated

Security patches

Disabling iMessage would prevent Zero clicks exploits or the Triangulation attacks

Paying zero attention to unwanted, unsolicited messages

The user should make sure that any application they are downloading or installing; it should be from a trusted source ( This Zero click attack does not occur by any other means, It exploits / it targets software vulnerabilities in operating systems networks and applications)

Being cautious with the messaging app and emails

Implement device restrictions (management features like parental control and restrictions over using necessary applications)

Conclusion

Operation Triangulation is one of the recent operations combating cyber attacks, but such operations are launched nearly daily. This is also due to a rapid rise in internet and technology penetration across the world. Cyberattacks have taken a new face as they have evolved with the new and emerging technology. The influence of the Darknet has allowed many hackers to remain on the black hat side due to easy accessibility to illegal tools and material over the dark net, which facilitates such crimes.