ISLAMABAD: A report by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has revealed that an online group in Pakistan targeted people, including military personnel, in both India and Pakistan through fake social media accounts, during the first quarter of the current year.

The “Adversarial Threat Report, First Quarter 2023” released at the Meta website stated that actions were taken against three separate cyber espionage operations in South Asia linked to a group of hackers known in the security industry as “Bahamut APT (advanced persistent thr­e­at)”, another known as “Patchwork APT” and a “state-linked group in Pakistan”.

The report highlighted fake apps and websites del­ivering malware at Face­book and Instagram social media platforms, invo­lved in espionage as well as committing financial crimes across the world.

The report shared information about six networks that were taken down for violating the policies.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2023