Meta took action against three cyber espionage networks from South Asia that targeted people in India and Pakistan, including military personnel. The company also took action against accounts involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior originating from China and targeted at India. The Facebook and Instagram parent revealed this on May 3 in its Quarterly Adversarial Threat Report. Why does this matter: Meta's report sheds light on the types of cyber threats that India faces and who the people behind them are. The report also elaborates on how these threat actors target their victims. Which cyber espionage networks were taken down and why? "Cyber espionage actors typically target people across the internet to collect intelligence, manipulate them into revealing information, and compromise their devices and accounts," Meta explained. This quarter, the company took action against the following three actors, who are "all long-running advanced persistent threat (APT) groups targeting people across the internet." 1. Pakistan-based APT: "We took action against about 120 accounts on Facebook and Instagram linked to a hacking group in Pakistan that predominantly targeted people in India and Pakistan, including military personnel in India and among the Pakistan Air Force. Our investigation connected it to state-linked actors in Pakistan," Meta informed. Even though this group's activities were low in sophistication, they targeted many services across the internet, Meta explained. The tactics used by the group include: Social engineering and fake personas: This group made fake personas and posed as recruiters, military personnel, journalists, and women looking to make a romantic connection,…
