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Here’s How We Got Hacked: Thanks to Warid Telecom

303043_10150764865985134_6185086_nIn the last two weeks, dozens of high-profile Pakistan-targeted Facebook pages have been hacked, courtesy of Warid Telecom. We have not only lost a dozen pages in general, but also some business pages including KoolMuzone’s Facebook page with nearly 60,000 likes. Not only are we facing financial losses, our brand is being destroyed over the Facebook. For all those who’re wondering how could Warid be responsible for this? Well, here’s how.

Ever-since people have started making their living over the internet in this part of the world, a lot of things have went wrong primarily because of the lawlessness in the country and especially in the cyber-space. Unfortunately, for the people who work hard in the cyber-space to make an honest-dollar are now being swept away by the group of young skiddies who are not only causing damages to the online industry of Pakistan in general but are also making fun of the lawlessness, this country, the government, FIA and especially NR3C.

The reason why these skiddies have continued to do this for the past 3 years, and are likely to get on with this is the encouragement. The encouragement from the law enforcement agencies. The reason why they have this kind of encouragement is because NR3C has failed to play it’s role. By only having a catchy flash animation in the header doesn’t scare these skiddies away. They are being encouraged because they know the victims of their crimes can not challenge them in the court of law because court of law asks for evidence which sometimes can only be produced by the law enforcement agencies because of the limitations of an individual. Imagine how lucky do these criminals feel when they commit the crimes knowing they are not going to get caught for this. Pakistan has become paradise for the criminals of cyber-space to commit frauds and not get punished for this.

There are more than one groups active at the moment in Pakistan who make their living by hacking Facebook Pages and using them for traffic on day to day basis. Among the two large scale scammers, one group is headed from Sargodha, while the other one is headed from Islamabad. I’m personally the fan of the 24-years old scammer from Islamabad because his ways are quite impressive.

They have used more than one ways to commit their day to day crimes and have to continuously evolve to be able to continue doing this. The need of evolution is because Facebook does a better job on trying to stop them than the law enforcement agencies in Pakistan.

What’s the recent scam, you may ask? The recent scam is the SIM hijacking. A lot of people who are technologically aware have already moved to the 2-step authentication. For those of you who do not know about this, 2-step authentication simply requires a two step process to log in to your online accounts. When the user puts in his password to login, the service then sends the user a text message with a code. The user then needs to input the code received in the text message to login into the service. This is a fool-proof authentication in most parts of the world because only the rightful user has access to his phone. However, in Pakistan, the 2-step authentication is what makes you vulnerable at first place.

In the recent weeks, Warid has issued multiple duplicate SIMs against many numbers, unauthorized, and illegally letting these skiddies not only use your private number, but also allowing the unauthorized user to get access of your Facebook accounts, Google accounts and even bank accounts. While this has continued to happen for many weeks, Warid hasn’t taken responsibility yet, has not made available any information about why and how the SIMs were issued, who issued them and to whom were they issued. Warid’s word on the situation is “we’re still investigating” while the people have suffered millions in losses.

We have already filed complaint against Warid with the PTA and would request anyone with 2-step-authentication to immediately move from Warid to other networks. We would further advise you to use a separate number for the 2-step-auth or not use number at all because even that is safer in Pakistan considering the passwords can be reset using the phone number alone giving hacker the access to your account with just phone number bypassing the password. We will also be raising the issue against Warid on legal grounds in the coming weeks.

If you’re wondering how much money do these groups raise? Safe to say between $10,000 to $100,000  per month depending on the size of the group which also tells the amount of loss these groups are causing to everyone else on monthly basis.

By Hamad Dar

Hey, I am Hamad. I like Rock/Metal music from the 80s. My favorites are Guns n Roses and Pink Floyd. Apart from that i listen to Underground music of Pakistan and try to promote them as much as I can.

14 replies on “Here’s How We Got Hacked: Thanks to Warid Telecom”

If the government continues to ignore these kind of things , there wont be any (foreign and local) investments . Then how will the get ‘haram ka paisa’ that i wonder .

Hello Everyone & Admin … on 15 January someone hacked my 6 biggest pages of Facebook now they sharing spam & adult content for traffic … I report to facebook etc but no response … please guide me what to do and how to stop them from sharing spam & adult content from my blog official pages ? I really need your help … Thanks alot

hilarious article, how can this give access to you Google / Facebook account.. 2 step authentication can’t be broken if you have the cellphone access, you need to know the password as well:-P

Thanks for shedding light on this issue and making people aware about the vulnerabilities of 2-Step authentication. Even I didn’t know about it and now understand why I was getting facebook recovery code via text again and again.

It MUST be taken more seriously by authorities concerned, but I doubt it as they probably won’t take it until they themselves or their closed ones become target of this cyber crime.

You have mentioned about the scammers of Sargodha and Islamabad but calling their work “impressive” contradict with your own point of view and give these skiddies a reason to get inspiration to continue with their destructive game. It should be discouraged NOT praised.

Lastly, I hope you manage to get the page back soon.

I feel sorry for you guys but would like to correct the statement Koolmuzone is making an honest dollar. IMO, making traffic money on artists content and not giving them any cut is not an honest dollar. Lawlessness is an issue with Pakistan in general, cyber space is probably not even a priority on any judicial system.

@Jansher You got me giggled. Do you really think we’re pirating artist’s content here? This is a “BLOG” not a record store or a music record company. Everything goes online with artist’s approval. They get their promotion for free. And at times they “pay” us for promoting their content. If artists had anything against us, they would sue us instead of running sponsored content here.

The problem with Pakistan is people like you who can never stand if someone else is doing better than you. Which is also why we got hacked at first place and had to write this.

I just come to know about the hack from Twitter, and close friend @Danish. I can understand your pain, and how it affected you. I hope authorities will take serious action against the Warid.

Let me shed some more light on Warid system, the duplicate SIM’s are here from a long time. Even I got one of my number closed due to someone who has more power in Warid to flush out all of my record in their systems.

I do agree with your option. I am already using couple of numbers, and managing my online properties in a really different way.

I hope you will find a way to get your page back to you.

– Hamza Tariq (Hamza Sheikh)

@hammad, I never used the word piracy. So you have two assumptions there, first that I think you good folks are pirating any content. Second judging from one comment that I am one those Pakistanis who cant stand your or anyone elses success. Good job on running a blog when you dont understand the point that your users are making. I also mentioned that I am against any hacking or unlawful activities. (guess you didnt read that).

Just because you ve made enemies over the years does not mean you have the right to bash your fans like this. Ive been following KM for the longest time when you guys had 5k fans on FB. But over the years the quality has substantially deteriorated due the money=promotion factor. Sharing a talented artist once(who doesnt have money to promote himself) never will stand a chance against artists who pay lum sum amount(regardless of their talent). Last time I checked this was a website for the budding artists not the ones who can buy marketing space anywhere they want. defeats the purpose of a fair promotion for Pakistani Musicians. I understand you have costs involved, bills to pay. But this was suppose to be a free forum where talent emerges rather than money. I just think the balance has been disturbed, but hey its your website. I wish you all the best and alot of “honest dollars” in the future. Slaam.

I may agree with the quality part to some extent but not for the reasons you’re mentioning. This is (almost) not for profit blog. Whatever revenue it generates is mostly consumed in bills. As for the last 3 months, there were losses instead of profits. As for the quality, one of the reasons is that we do not generate substantial revenue. 5 years ago, I had just begun my under-grad and I was doing everything out of hobby for the love of Pakistani music. Now that I’ve graduated, I had to move on from here to be able to make a sustainable living.

We try to raise the money to pay bills through the corporate sector and never through the musicians. All the promotion is for free. However, if someone requests an extended paid promo, its featured on the right side (never as part of content).

None of the content has ever been sold to any of the musicians.

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