Tek Fog

Tek Fog is an application software used by the information technology cell of the Bharatiya Janata Party as part of their social media campaigning to spread propaganda. In 2022, The Wire reported that the Tek Fog app was used by BJP "to artificially inflate the popularity of the party, harass its critics and manipulate public perceptions at scale across major social media platforms.".

Tek Fog was used to manage inauthentic accounts en masse on social media. Tek Fog was capable of hacking inactive WhatsApp accounts en masse in order to mass message their contacts with propaganda messages, while impersonating the account owner. According to The Wire, a whistleblower with app access was able to hack a test WhatsApp account controlled by reporters "within minutes."

An investigation by The Wire found that Bharatiya Janata Party, Persistent Systems and ShareChat were involved in the use of the App. Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (Youth wing of Bharatiya Janata Party) members supervised the operators and gave them ideological operation. It reported that Mohalla Tech (the owner of ShareChat) was involved in the management of Tek Fog. The whistleblower, responsible for the discovery of Tek Fog, was paid via Mohalla Tech as their assigned client, and ShareChat was widely exploited by Tek Fog. The Wire found that Persistent Systems was involved in the production and management of Tek Fog. An internal source within Persistent System confirmed the involvement of the company, with 17,000 files connected to Tek Fog developed by Persistent Systems.

MP Derek O'Brien has called for a meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, to discuss the app. Congress has urged the Supreme court to ask its expert panel to investigate the app. The Editors Guild of India condemned "the online harassment of women journalists, which includes targeted and organised online trolling as well as threats of sexual abuse" and demanded steps to break and dismantle the "misogynistic and abusive digital eco-system" of Tek Fog.

The Wire Investigation

An investigation by The Wire found that Tek Fog an application software was used by the information technology cell of the Bharatiya Janata Party as part of their social media campaigning to spread propaganda. In 2022, The Wire reported that the Tek Fog app was used by BJP "to artificially inflate the popularity of the party, harass its critics and manipulate public perceptions at scale across major social media platforms."

Tek Fog was used to manage inauthentic accounts en masse on social media. Tek Fog was capable of hacking inactive WhatsApp accounts en masse in order to mass message their contacts with propaganda messages, while impersonating the inactive WhatsApp account owner.

Hijacking of social media trends

The Tek Fog app could hijack the 'trending' section of social media sites, Twitter and Facebook. The operators of Tek Fog could share and forward social media messages automatically by an individual or a group. This was used to artificially inflate the popularity of "extremist narratives and political campaigns."

Phishing and capturing inactive WhatsApp accounts

Tek Fog was capable of hacking inactive WhatsApp accounts en masse in order to mass message their contacts with propaganda messages, while impersonating the inactive WhatsApp account owner. Inactive WhatsApp accounts are those accounts that were not being used by its registered user, either because WhatsApp was uninstalled from the phone or the phone was reset.

As a first step of the process the targeted WhatsApp accounts that were active were sent a media file (video or image) from an unknown number. The media file contained spyware that became active after download. The downloaded spyware would make the phone vulnerable to remote surveillance. The hacker would be able to monitor its activity status. When the phone became inactive due to (unistallation or reset). The inactive status would be visible to the hacker, who could take control of the target account and use it to send messages remotely, without the knowledge of the owner of the targeted WhatsApp account.

Only inactive WhatsApp accounts were targeted. Sending messages remotely from an active WhatsApp account would create suspicion from the original owner.

According to The Wire, while verifying this exploit, the whistleblower with access to Tek Fog was able to hack and take control of a test WhatsApp account used by its reporters "within minutes." It then sent a message to all the frequent contacts of the captured account.

Database of private citizens for targeted harassment

Tek Fog had an extensive database of private citizens with information about their "occupation, religion, language, age, gender, political inclination and even physical attributes like skin tone and breast size." The Wire had received screenshots that showed these parameters. The Wire verified the existence of database by monitoring harassment messages that were sent with extreme granularity to "female journalists", who were among the targeted groups.

Modification of existing news articles

Tek Fog had an ability to modify existing news articles to change its links and keywords. The changed link would then lead the read to a webpage that looked similar to the original website but had fake content, different from what the original author had written. The text modification capabilities were powered by artificial intelligence models.

Automated messaging

Tek Fog could send automated messages from inauthentic accounts automatically created in bulk. These primarily contained political propaganda and abuse messages.

Political-corporate nexus

The use of Tek Fog is part of a political-corporate nexus that had connected large tech players and platforms with the political party BJP.

Organisations involved

• Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (Youth wing of Bharatiya Janata Party). A former National Social Media and IT Head of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha who currently worked as the election manager of BJP in Maharashtra was the immediate supervisor of the source in The Wire investigation. BJYM members supervised the operators and gave them ideological operation. The Wire verified their involvement using the codes sent through their official email id. These codes helped to identify the secure server hosting Tek Fog and external websites connecting to the Tek Fog server.
• Persistent Systems is an Indian-American technology services company involved in development and maintenance. A current employee of the company provided documents related to the development of the application from the company's internal servers. It showed around 17,000 assets found by the searc term "Tek Fog".

• ShareChat is a social media platform created by Mohalla Tech Pvt. Ltd. The operatives of the Tek Fog had used Sharechat, "to test and curate fake news, political propaganda and hate speech before automating it to other popular social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp". The involvement of ShareChat was verified through 14 accounts controlled using Tek Fog. These 14 accounts had made posts on Share chat, Twitter and Facebook in April 2020. The Wire found that 90% of the social media posts from these accounts were first uploaded on ShareChat after which they were moved to Twitter or Facebook.

Victims

The Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) in a statement condemning the app said that the "Women journalists have been prime targets of the app. The Wire investigation lists women journalists who received up to one million abusive tweets between January and May 2021. They include Rana Ayyub, Barkha Dutt, Nidhi Razdan, Rohini Singh, Swati Chaturvedi, Sagarika Ghose, Manisha Pande, Faye D'Souza, Arfa Khanum Sherwani and Smita Prakash".

On 9 January, journalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani released a list of prominent women from several religions including Hindus, who were targeted and harassed by Tek Fog.

Reactions

The journalist body, Editors Guild of India said that The Wire investigation "laid bare an extensive and well funded network built around an app, Tek Fog, which steals unused WhatsApp accounts to send out toxic messages to targeted journalists", "several women journalists were subjected to thousands of abusive tweets". "The purpose of this deeply hurtful messages was to instill fear in them and prevent them from expressing themselves freely and go about their jobs." The Editors Guild condemned "the continuing online harassment of women journalists, which includes targeted and organised online trolling as well as threats of sexual abuse." The Guild demanded "urgent steps to break and dismantle this misogynistic and abusive digital eco-system".

Congress party called Tek Fog, "a poisonous weapon of the BJP’s propaganda machinery, which is harmful to the country". The Minister of State for Home in Maharashtra government, Satej Patil questioned the silence of the Government of India and Information and Technology ministry over the Tek Fog expose. Patil demanded that the Union government should take cognisance of the issue.

Call for meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs

Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien (of the Trinamool Congress), a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs wrote to Anand Sharma, the head of the committee, to discuss the secret app "Tek Fog" that "has serious ramifications and could jeopardise national security". He wrote, "This application is capable of penetrating encrypted messaging platforms and secure social media conversations, in order to heavily manipulate and exploit narratives on said platforms." Chairman Sharma was reported to have taken note of the matter, and may be discussed in the next meeting of the Parliamentary Panel on Home Affairs.

On 10 January, O'Brien wrote a second letter to convene a meeting to discuss Tek Fog. He wrote that the app provided an ability to hijack the WhatsApp accounts of citizens using spywares. The inactive contacts of the hijacked number would then be used to send mass messages. He wrote, "All of the hijacked number's contacts are synced to a database on cloud, ripe for picking as future targets of disinformation and harassment... It is also pointed out that this hacking technique was formerly used by the Pegasus spyware, before the NSO Group developed an even more sophisticated zero-click hijacking method,". The application could send automated messages, spread misinformation, fake news and mislead citizens.

Call for Supreme Court intervention

Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate held a press conference on the issue where she "urged the Supreme Court to look into this and to punish, in no uncertain terms, the people who are behind this because no one should have the right or the freedom to erode India’s democracy". Congress wanted the Supreme Court to get the issue examined by the expert panel that was looking into the alleged use of the Pegasus spyware on Indian citizens. She said that the app "targets Indian citizens and hurts the very foundation of our democracy". Congress leader Rahul Gandhi called the app, one of the several "factories of hate" set up by BJP.

The Editors Guild of India cited the investigative report by The Wire, and urged the Supreme Court to order an investigation into the allegations that the Tek Fog app was used to harass women journalists with abusive tweets. The report had alleged that influential people from the ruling party BJP may be involved.

The Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) issued a statement, asking an "urgent inquiry by the Supreme Court into the role of social media and tech companies in amplifying the crime of Hate Speech,". The alleged use of the Tek Fog app by the ruling-BJP, was condemned by the DUJ.

See also

• Pegasus Project revelations in India

Further reading

• "Tek Fog: An App With BJP Footprints for Cyber Troops to Automate Hate, Manipulate Trends". The Wire. 6 January 2022.
• "Explainer: Here's What the Tek Fog App Can Do, and Why You Should Care". The Wire. 7 January 2022.
• "Tek Fog: Morphing URLs to Make Real News Fake, 'Hijacking' WhatsApp to Drive BJP Propaganda". The Wire. 10 January 2022.

External links

• Tek Fog: Quick explainer The Wire
• Prime Time With Ravish Kumar: Tek Fog App से सावधान! आपके बच्चों को दंगाई बना देगा NDTV