Handiwork of Pakistani hackers, Indian Army and education sector targeted

Indian security researchers said on Saturday that they have detected a new wave of cyber attacks on the Indian Army and the education sector by Pakistan-based hackers. According to a report by Secrite, the enterprise arm of Pune-based Quick Heal Technologies, Transparent Tribe is targeting Indian government and military organizations.

malicious file access

A Pakistan-based group (called ABD36) is using a malicious file called Revision of Officers’ Posting Policy to lure the Indian Army into compromising its systems. The team noted that the file is disguised as a legitimate document, but contains embedded malware to exploit vulnerabilities.

Intrusion into reputed educational institutions

Apart from this, the cyber-security team also observed the incident of the same hackers (Pakistani hackers) targeting the education sector as well. Since May 2022, Transparent Tribe has been infiltrating prestigious educational institutions like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), National Institute of Technology (NIT) and business schools. These attacks intensified in the first quarter of 2023 and reached their peak in February.

Indian Defense Organization targeted

Researchers said, a subdivision of Transparent Tribe targeted the Indian Defense Organization. The purpose of this sophisticated strategy is to capture sensitive information. apt36 has cleverly used malicious PPAM files. An APPAM file is an add-in file used by Microsoft Power Point. These files use a macro-enabled PowerPoint add-on (PPAM) to disguise archive files as OLE objects, effectively hiding the presence of malware, the report said.

Regularly update security software, operating systems and applications to protect against known vulnerabilities, the team advised. It is also important to implement strong email filtering and web security solutions to detect and block malicious content.

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