Facebook identifies hackers in Bangladesh

HM Murtuza and Iqbal Mahmud | Published: 13:03, Dec 11,2020 | Updated: 00:01, Dec 12,2020

 
 

Social media platform Facebook on Friday declared two non-profit organisations of Bangladesh as hackers, which have been working with the police on cyber security issues and with the government as consultants on information and communication technology.

The social media platform said, ‘The Bangladesh-based groups targeted local activists, journalists and religious minorities, including those living abroad, to compromise their accounts and have some of them disabled by Facebook for violating our community standards.’


The non-profit organisations  are: Don’s Team also known as Defence of Nation and the Crime Research and Analysis Foundation or CRAF, a statement published on Facebook’s newsroom confirmed on Thursday.

The groups appeared to be operating across a number of internet services, it said.

Former adviser of CRAF Tanvir Hassan Zoha, an assistant professor at Bangladesh University of Business and Technology and managing director of Backdoor Private Limited, told New Age, ‘Even he faced cyber bullying of CRAF after he had left the group.’

‘I left the group as I have noticed them attacking Facebook accounts and pages belonging to celebrities,’ he said.

Zoha mentioned that police received support from both the groups in dealing with cyber security problems.

On Thursday, CRAF president Jennifer Alam conducted a Facebook live on cyber security where Kurigram superintendent of Police Mohibul Islam Khan, additional deputy police commissioner (Cyber Crime Investigation Division) Najmul Islam, additional superintendent of police Tahsin Mashroof Hossain Mashfi and assistant commissioner Iftekharul Islam were present.

When approached, Kurigram superintendent of police Mohibul Islam Khan told New Age that Jenifar Alam, president of CRAF, participated in the online discussion as cyber security expert.

‘It is up to Facebook to determine whether she was part of the group responsible for hacking,’ said Mohibul.

She was participating as an individual, not representing the organisation, the police officer added.

Jennifer Alam also works as instructor at the information and communication technology ministry’s national emergency number 999 programme.

Facebook also said that Don’s Team and CRAF collaborated to report people on Facebook for fictitious violations of our community standards, including alleged impersonation, intellectual property infringements, nudity and terrorism.

‘They also hacked people’s accounts and pages and used some of these compromised accounts for their own operational purposes, including amplifying their contents,’ it said.

‘On at least one occasion, after a page admin’s account was compromised, the groups removed the remaining admins to take over and disable the page,’ the statement issued by Facebook head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher and its cyber threat intelligence manager Mike Dvilyanski said.

‘Our investigation suggests that these targeted hacking attempts have most likely been carried out through a number of off-platform tactics including email and device compromise and abuse of our account recovery process,’ they said.

‘To disrupt this activity, we removed the accounts and pages behind this operation,’ said the statement.

‘We shared information about this group with our industry partners so that they too can detect and stop these activities,’ it said.

‘We encourage people to remain vigilant and take steps to protect their accounts, avoid clicking on suspicious links and downloading software from untrusted sources that can compromise their devices and information stored on them,’ said Facebook.

Apart from identifying the Bangladeshi groups, the social media platform also identified another advanced persistent threat actors based in Vietnam, APT32, said Facebook.

APT32 targeted Vietnamese human rights activists locally and abroad, various foreign governments, including those in Laos and Cambodia, non-governmental organisations, news agencies and a number of businesses across information technology, hospitality, agriculture and commodities, hospitals, retail, the auto industry, and mobile services with malware.

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