Govt officials warned of hostile spy agencies bid to steal data

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has issued a cybersecurity alert, saying that spy agencies of hostile nations have become active in stealing sensitive information of Pakistan’s civil and military officials. 

The enemies have been active and they are targeting email IDs of government officials through phishing techniques. The federal government has sent the advisory communique to all provincial governments, divisions and ministries. Quoting the advisory, government sources said that failure to implement cybersecurity and safe email methods by government officials were factors responsible for cyberattacks. Unsafe practices on the part of government officials include keeping weak passwords, sending secret messages through vendors and sharing documents through WhatsApp, paving the way for hostile agencies to exploit the cybersecurity vulnerability.

According to the federal government’s letter, emails of government officials are being targeted within the country and abroad. In order to impersonate, names and designations are being mentioned in emails. The government has advised officials to avoid using WhatsApp, Telegram and other applications as well as unreliable internet connections for sharing government information.

In addition, the officials have also been directed to follow certain standard operating procedures, including avoiding using official emails on mobile phones, employing different IDs for personal and official purposes, stopping to share personal and official data on cloud storage and adopting a two-way identification process for emails.

Besides, the government officials have also been barred from sharing one-time passwords with anyone and providing personal data to any online suspicious campaign. The federal government has also advised them to adopt secure password encryption techniques, and anti-spam and anti-phishing mechanisms.

The alert letter says the IT infrastructure in every department’s communication service is important, doing work without it is not possible, but adopting security practices is very important to guard against hostile elements.

The government officials have been further advised not to open attachments from unknown sources, to unsubscribe suspicious/spam emails and alert their IT administrators.