The Indian Army through its social media handle @adgpi (Additional Directorate General of Public Information, Indian Army) has released a couple of videos advising the Indian people on the responsible and safe use of social media.
The first video, released on 16 March warns people over fake news and phishing numbers. The video says Pakistani phone numbers starting with 0092 often make fake SMSes and WhatsApp forwards to announce lotteries and promise financial gains. The people should be careful about these 0092 numbers. The numbers are usually used for phishing calls to extract bank account information and they also feature Indian images and fake Indian names to lure innocent people. The video advises people to be alert and not fall for fake messages.
सजग रहे, सतर्क रहें, सुरक्षित रहें।#भारतीयसेना सोशल मीडिया का स्वस्थ और उचित उपयोग प्रोत्साहित करता है। परंतु सोशल मीडिया में असत्य को भी सत्य स्वरूप दिखाया जाता है।सावधान रहें अन्यथा धोखा हो सकता है। जांचे,परखें और विश्वास पूर्ण सत्यापन पर ही करें। watch-https://t.co/tElfdukpqw
— ADG PI – INDIAN ARMY (@adgpi) March 17, 2018
The second video, released on 18th March warns about Chinese hackers trying to gain access to personal data of Indians through WhatsApp groups. The video suggests people should scrutinize the numbers on their WhatsApp groups to check if they have any new additions. Any unknown number that starts with +86 should be removed. +86 is the country code for China and such numbers are increasingly barging into WhatsApp groups and stealing personal data for Chinese hackers. The video advises people to inform group admin of the WhatsApp group when a group member changes the sim card. The video also advises to destroy any old sim cards and erase data from it.
सजग रहे,सतर्क रहें,सुरक्षित रहें।#भारतीयसेना सोशल मीडिया उचित एवं नियमबद्ध एकाउंट को प्रोत्साहित करता है। हैकिंग जोरो पर है, उनके लिए जो असावधान हैं। अपने सोशल मीडिया को हमेशा चेक करें। व्यक्तिगत एवं ग्रुप एकाउंट के बारे में सावधान रहें, सुरक्षित रहें। @DefenceMinIndia @PIB_India pic.twitter.com/YQbdVFsmWe
— ADG PI – INDIAN ARMY (@adgpi) March 18, 2018
The video states that the Chinese use all kinds of platforms to penetrate into the digital world of people and WhatsApp groups is the latest tool of digital data theft by Chinese hackers.