NEW DELHI: THE Indian Army has issued a warning to its personnel against Pakistani agencies’ nefarious designs to hack the phones of Indian military personnel through a malicious application similar to the Aarogya Setu app. “Inimical Intelligence agencies have developed a malicious app by the name Aarogya Setu.apk. Such apps were found to be sent by Pakistan-based Pakistani Intelligence Operatives to WhatsApp groups of Indian Army personnel,” the Army has stated in its warning. Senior Army sources told ANI that Pakistani agencies are using social media accounts with Indian names to target the Indian personnel.

“Known Pakistani Intelligence Operative account under the fake name of one ‘Anoshka Chopra’ also found sending the malicious application to Indian Army personnel,” the sources said. The Army in its warning has asked personnel about the need to be sensitised about the Pakistani spy agencies’ designs while downloading the application. The Army has also told its men and women that the Aarogya Setu application must be downloaded only from Government website (mygov.in) or Android Play Store or IOS Apple Play Store.

All forces personnel have been asked to download the Aarogya Setu application to help in the detection and checking the spread of COVID-19. The application has been developed by Government agencies and is being used by almost all Government employees. Recently, Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane had stated that while India is busy fighting coronavirus both internally and globally, Pakistan is busy in exporting terrorism in India.