Social Media Trap

 

Social Media Trap

 

Some WhatsApp users complained and police arrested Ayush. According to the complainants, a hateful, offensive and religiously divisive post went viral since last three-four days, from the WhatsApp group of which Ayush was the admin.

Damini, a Cyber Security consultant analysed Ayush's social media handles (his Facebook, Instagram and Twitter profiles), through social media analytic tools. This type of analysis can reveal a great deal about a person's mental state. Like… Is the person depressed? Restless? Angry? or balanced? What are the political, religious and social beliefs of that person? Etc ...

From social media analysis, however, Ayush seemed to be a young man with a balanced personality.

At the request, the police allowed Damini and Advocate Sachin (Ayush’s prosecutor) to check the cloned copy of Ayush's mobile phone.

When a cyber-crime happens, during digital forensics, a cloned copy of the involving device is created and the original device is preserved. (Mobile phone in this case) The whole investigation is done on that copy only.

A hash key is created by retaining data from the original device. A hash key is a unique signature of a memory. Therefore, the device can be presented in the court of law as conclusive evidence.

Damini started checking the cloned copy of Ayush's mobile. Lots of WhatsApp groups were there. She noticed one of them. The group's name was "Amazing World." Most of the numbers in that group were from Pakistan and Bangladesh. There seemed to be a lot of links posted in that group. Surprisingly, there was no content on those links anymore.

Fortunately, no other group had any offensive posts. Taking note of the numbers of the members of the group “Amazing World”, she decided to meet Ayush.

"Most of the members of your Amazing World WhatsApp group have Pakistani and Bangladeshi numbers. Do you know them all?"

She asked Ayush.

"No, I don't know anyone."

"Hey, but you're the admin of that group, aren't you?"

"I'm not the only admin in that group, there are two or three other admins. I did not add anyone.

Someone sent me an invite link of this group. I found the group fascinating. So, I joined from that link. Links to videos on zoology and geology topics used to be posted there. I have forwarded them many times."

After a thorough analysis of the foreign numbers in that group, Damini noticed that Ayush was trapped in the Cross Border Social Influencer group.

Some of the socially annoying elements from our neighbouring countries are using this technique, with the intention to create influence or religious rift among the people in our country. For this, social media like WhatsApp is used deliberately. First of all, a group is created on social media and some Indians are added to it through invite link. Initially, members are forced to stay in the group by adding interesting links, videos and messages.

The group's invite link is embedded  in the video links sent to the added members. If that member forwards that link, other people will join the group via invite link. Some of them quit the group. Some become members of the group without much thought.

These people even hack mobiles by sending malware links and blackmail the members too. Initially they post interesting content. After a few days, they start posting hidden links, share offensive content with the intention to make that viral on social media.

In this incident, one of the members, from this cross-border group, knowingly, embedded offensive content and somehow, posted a seemingly informative post. Then, he had conspiratorially left the group along with other members.  These exited members might include all the other admins of that group and Ayush was trapped as the only group admin.

Assuming it as an interesting video, Ayush forwarded it  to other groups and a complaint was lodged against him when the embedded link to a religiously divisive, offensive content was being accessed.

Damini prepared an analytical report of all this scenario, attached the necessary screenshots to it and handed over the report to Advocate Sachin. Based on that analysis / report and other evidence, Ayush was acquitted of the crime.

 

Based on the above incident, some precautions need to be taken by social media users:

·      Avoid clicking on unfamiliar links.

·      Don't join unknown groups.

·      Set that no one can add you to any group except the people in your contact list.

·      Even if you accidentally get added to such an unfamiliar group, you should leave immediately.

·      Stay alert and enjoy technology.

 

©Kavita Datar

Cyber Security Consultant