: A week after Telangana police’s HawkEye app was hacked and user data posted online for sale, another police app, TSCOP, was infiltrated by hackers. As a result, police information is up for sale on forums online. The TSCOP app was hacked by the same source that hacked HawkEye.
The hacker, as with the HawkEye, is selling the app user data on online forums for $120. The TSCOP app was launched in 2018, for the internal use of the Telangana police. The app’s primary function was to provide instant information to police officials to solve crimes.
The app also has an integrated facial-recognition system (FRS). Police officials can use FRS to identify criminals, unknown bodies at crime scenes or even missing children. The then DGP M.
Mahender Reddy had said, “Images will be compared against Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) and other police databases.” The hacker uploaded sample data on forums to sell the database. Sample data of Offender option, police gun licence details and law enforcement details have been uploaded by the hacker.
For the Offender option, data of the district and the police station, the name of the offender and their aliases, offender’s age, mobile number, current address, date of arrest, latitude and longitude details of the arrest area are enlisted. For the police gun licence details, the name of the police station, the unique identification number of the licence, licence holder’s name, date of birth, Aadhar number or voter I.