Two senior officers working for anti-terror police in Bangladesh allegedly collected and offered categorized and private data of residents to criminals on Telegram, TechCrunch has discovered.
The information allegedly offered included nationwide identification particulars of residents, cellular phone name data and different “categorized secret data,” in response to a letter signed by a senior Bangladeshi intelligence official, seen by TechCrunch.
The letter, dated April 28, was written by Brigadier Basic Mohammad Baker, who serves as a director of Bangladesh’s Nationwide Telecommunications Monitoring Heart, or NTMC, the nation’s digital eavesdropping company. Baker confirmed the legitimacy of the letter and its contents in an interview with TechCrunch.
“Departmental investigation is ongoing for each the instances,” Baker mentioned in a web based chat, including that the Bangladeshi Ministry of Residence Affairs ordered the affected police organizations to take “essential motion towards these officers.”
The letter, which was initially written in Bengali and addressed to the senior secretary of the Ministry of Residence Affairs Public Safety Division, alleges the 2 police brokers accessed and handed “extraordinarily delicate data” of personal residents on Telegram in change for cash.
In response to the letter, the police brokers have been caught after investigators analyzed logs of the NTMC’s programs and the way typically the 2 accessed it.
The letter reveals the identification of the officers. One of many accused is a police superintendent serving with the Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU). The opposite is an assistant police superintendent deputy on the Speedy Motion Battalion, also referred to as RAB 6, a controversial paramilitary unit that the U.S. authorities sanctioned in 2021 over allegations that the unit is linked to a whole lot of disappearances and extrajudicial killings. TechCrunch will not be naming the 2 individuals who have been accused because it’s unclear if they’ve been charged below the nation’s authorized system.
The NTMC is a authorities intelligence company established below Bangladesh’s Ministry of Residence Affairs. The company’s core activity is to watch all telecommunications visitors and intercept telephone and internet communications to detect and forestall threats to nationwide safety.
Organizations like Human Rights Watch and Freedom Home have criticized the NTMC for missing safeguards towards abuses, each towards free speech in addition to privateness. Over time, NTMC procured refined know-how from firms in Israel, which Bangladesh doesn’t formally acknowledge, in addition to different Western nations, to conduct mass surveillance largely on opposition celebration members, journalists, civil society members and activists.
As a part of its mission, the NTMC runs the Nationwide Intelligence Platform, or NIP, an inside authorities internet portal that holds categorized citizen data, like nationwide identification particulars, cellular phone registration and cell information data, legal profiles and different data.
Varied legislation enforcement and intelligence companies have consumer accounts on the NIP portal supplied by the NTMC.
NTMC’s personal investigation concluded that the brokers used the NIP platform extra regularly than others, and accessed and picked up data that was not related to them.
“Contemplating the context, such irrelevant entry and illegal handover of extraordinarily delicate categorized information ought to be investigated to establish everybody concerned on this and we additionally request for applicable motion towards all these recognized/concerned,” the letter learn.
Baker informed TechCrunch that there have been a “variety of Telegram channels,” including that certainly one of them was known as BD CYBER GANG.
TechCrunch couldn’t establish the particular channel on Telegram.
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Baker informed TechCrunch that it seems that the 2 brokers despatched the knowledge to the administrator of at the least one Telegram group, who then tried to promote it.
Baker mentioned that the 2 brokers have been notified of the investigation.
Due to the investigation, all NIP customers from ATU and RAB 6 have had their entry suspended “till the concerned officers are recognized, and correct motion is taken,” in response to the letter.
Baker confirmed the suspended entry, saying that if brokers “want any data for investigation functions they will accumulate via Police and RAB HQ.”
Spokespeople for Bangladesh’s Ministry of Residence Affairs and ATU didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark. An individual figuring out solely as an “operations officer” at RAB 6 informed TechCrunch that the company had no remark.
Final 12 months, a safety researcher discovered that the NTMC was leaking individuals’s private data on an unsecured server. The leaked information included real-world names, telephone numbers, electronic mail addresses, areas and examination outcomes, in response to Wired. One other Bangladeshi authorities company, the Workplace of the Registrar Basic, Beginning & Loss of life Registration, additionally leaked residents’ delicate information final 12 months, as TechCrunch reported on the time.
In each instances, the leaks have been discovered by Viktor Markopoulos, a researcher who works at Bitcrack Cyber Safety.
Whereas these have been vital instances of information publicity, this incident allegedly involving the ATU and RAB 6 brokers is doubtlessly extra damaging, on condition that the brokers allegedly offered data on-line in an try to revenue from their privileged entry to categorized private data.
Though the incident is below investigation, a well-placed supply inside the authorities informed TechCrunch that there are nonetheless officers who’re providing to promote residents’ information.
