Indian Security, Defence Personnel Cautioned of WhatsApp Virus

Security agencies of the central government are cautioning security and defence employees of one virus causing harm while it disguises as elite organisations such as NIA or NDA and illegitimately accesses banking data and personal information of the victims. News18.com posted this online dated December 31, 2016.

According to Press Trust of India (PTI), the twin disguised files are respectively named "NIA-selection-order.xls" and "NDA-ranked-8th-toughest-College-in-the-world-to-get-into.xls". Officials state that NIA indicates the premier organisation namely National Investigation Agency that probes into terrorist incidents while NDA refers to National Defence Academy of the army situated at Khadakwasla inside Pune.

Also according to officials quoted in The Economic Times, the mentioned twin organizations are widely known in India as well as abroad and for which there is immense curiosity. Therefore, it's probable that the two files masquerading as these names might infect the cell-phones that people wanting to know more about the organisations own. Nonetheless, security analysts have found that all women and men belonging to police, paramilitary and defence forces might primarily get targeted.

Security and defence establishments in India have been issued an advisory according to which, the twin dangerous virus-ridden files have been found circulating via WhatsApp the instant messaging (IM) app while they sniff personal information belonging to mobile users, particularly the army personnel.

Understandably, the malevolent virus-ridden files are created as MS Excel files; however, according to officials, their aliases with .PDF or MS Word file formats couldn't be ruled out as they attack people's cell-phones and included data. Additionally as per the advisory, the corrupt malware-laden files have been made for illegitimately extracting users' private details like PIN numbers and passwords of banking info as well as login particulars.

Officials stated that all within the security forces' field formations too were currently issued the advisory in order that both officers and troops on land were alerted as well as made wary of the virus that was observed affecting the IM application on cyber space of late.

Meanwhile, a recommendation to the personnel requires them to report any incident of the virus they encounter to their respective IT wings.

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