ISLAMABAD, Feb 2 (APP): The National Telecom and Information Technology Security Board (NTITSB) has advised the mobile users to stop using of Indian-oriented offline maps mobile application ‘Deesha’ for road navigation.
The NTITSB, in its advisory, said “The Indian ‘Deesha Application’ automatically gets access to the host system, data store, SMS read and location permission without knowledge of the users.” The additional features of the application, it added, included displaying location in Indian Grid system with accuracy, navigation to save way points, photo geotagging, location sharing, map view with panning and zooming option and displaying device way points.
The advisory said the application was not available on Google Play Store and might be downloaded from third party servers. As the users feedback of the application was quite positive, hence, its large scale future could be ruled out, it added.
It said organizations/users should refrain from use of Deesha as it was an Indian third party app. The NTITSB also issued best recommendations for mobile application usage. It asked the mobile users to block all applications installed from unknown sources. “These options are disabled in Android by default and it should stay that away.”
Google Play Protect must not be switched off in any case as it detected suspicious looking apps in one’s mobile device based on their behaviour and generated alert for users, it added. It further suggested the mobile users to do not click on links that promise unusual features or functionalities such as “WhatssApp offers of free airline tickets”, which were usually just an attempt to steal one’s personal data.
The same applied to phishing including texts from friends containing suspicious URLs. Before installing any application, the users must read its privacy explaining what data it was collecting from them and with whom it was sharing that data, the NTITSB said.
