The hackers are being asked to create a database of potential Indian candidates from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. And they are being offered lucrative deals too. For every ‘job’ that they do, a hacker would be paid in excess of $10,000. Experts are saying this has been the most anyone has been offered in the hacking community.

“There are various underground communities online where hackers interact regularly. Our investigation reveals that for the past six months, lucrative offers for stealing government data came pouring in and hackers were offered a huge sum. Such amount has never been offered to any Indian hacker before. We found that the offers were being made to spread ISIS reach in the country,” said Kislay Choudhary, a cyber crime expert working with several security agencies. Kislay also added that stealing a government secured data is a part of ISIS’s intelligence gathering exercise.

ISIS, for some time now, has been using its supporters on social media to propagate its ideologies and indoctrinate the youth across the globe. Experts believe that unfortunately many of the hackers have already accepted the offer as over 30,000 have been reportedly in contact with the extremist organisation in India till now. The recruited hackers are using online apps like Skype, Silent Circle, Telegram, and WhatsApp with their Syrian handlers.

Websites and social media pages spewing venom against India have increased substantially in the recent months. Most of the users of these channels are based out of various parts of South India, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Kashmir. The recruited Indian handlers are spreading their hate messages in a localised manner, getting in touch with their audience in Hindi, Gujarati, Urdu, Tamil and Bangla among other languages available online. Bangla too, very recently, has been used to target the youth of Bangladesh and India.

Read more at India Times