Pakistan Clashes With India In Cyberspace
Pakistani cyber warriors, in an attempt to retaliate against India'a decision to abolish autonomous local governmnet status in Kashmir, have flooded social media platforms with anti-India posts.
Security agencies and cyber experts have found that thousands of fake accounts have been created from Pakistan to peddle fake news, morphed pictures, and old videos to show India and its armed forces in a bad light.
Sources at India's central surveillance agency are reported as saying that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the intelligence agency of Pakistan, is on a hiring spree recruiting a pool of social media experts and hackers to wage information warfare by circulating fake information.
Thousands of fake profiles have been created recently on Facebook and Twitter to spread anti-India content. According to a senior Indian security officer, Pakistan has a large team of influencers who are spreading anti-India propaganda on social media. Security forces are said to be tracking these handles and doing a geographical mapping.
The Narendra Modi-led national government of India scrapped Article 370 oc the Constitution and have divided the regions of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories - Kashmir with a Legislature, and Jammu without a Legislature.
Following this historic decision, Pakistani influences allegedly circulated doctored videos of Indian media to show how local opinion as being against the move. After analysing these videos, it was found that all the atrocity videos, images and news coverage being circulated had no link with the current situation in Kashmir.
Deep analysis by a Delhi based cybersecurity firm - Innefu Labs, shows that thousands of accounts, pages and group on social media are active in Pakistan region which is involved in peddling fake news, targeting ideas and circulating negative propaganda.
"We have found that just after the annulment of Article 370, more than 1,500 bots (fake profiles) from Pakistan surfaced on social media and started trending anti-India narrative. In these tweets, they are also urging United Nations to intervene," said Tarun Vig, co-founder of Innefu Labs.
The bot accounts and the Pakistan-based propaganda accounts are all connected, as they are also retweeting and following each other on Twitter, tending to confirm an organised group is behind it. Vig highlighted that dedicated accounts across social media platforms are being created at an unprecedented rate to systematically criticise India's image and diplomatic influence.
Security agencies are closely monitoring Pakistan supporters' communication network on WhatsApp and Telegram groups to gather more information on them. Similar information warfare from Pakistan was witnessed duping the Pulwama attack and Balakot airstrike after which the tension between India and Pakistan was at an all-time high.
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