A Cyber crime Cell investigation of Meerut Police has unearthed a shocking security breach where over 13,000 phones of Chinese manufacturer Vivo were found to be running on the same International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number. Meerut’s medical station police has started investigating the incident and a fraud case has been filed against Vivo Communication Technology Co. Ltd and its service centres.
Vivo’s security breach is being considered a major lapse and the security officers are scurrying around to find the extent of the operation.
According to a report by Hindustan, the lapse came into light when a Sub-inspector got his Vivo handset exchanged from a service centre in Delhi but the IMEI number on the box of the phone was different from the one in the phone, which rose a few eyebrows within the Police department. The then ADG Prashant Kumar afterward directed the investigation to Prabal Kumar Pankaj (Crime Cell in-charge of Meerut Zone Police) and Cyber Expert Vijay Kumar.
On 16 January 2020, the service centre manager replied that the IMEI number had not been changed. Since the handset had a Jio SIM, the cyber cell sent the said IMEI number to the telecom company and asked for the data.
A report was sent to the police which stated that as of 24 September 2019 from 11 am to 11.30 am, the same IMEI number was running in 13,557 mobiles in different states of the country.
The cyber cell has given notice to Harmanjit Singh, the nodal officer of Vivo India under section 91 CrPC. It is being reported that the Meerut Police was not satisfied with the response to the notice.
Under the new rules of TRAI, an IMEI cannot be active on more than one mobile number. The cyber cell has admitted that the mobile company is grossly negligent in this matter and is in violation of TRAI rules.
According to ADG Rajiv Sabarwal, a few years ago when Chinese phones started shipping to India, their IMEI numbers used to be the same. After the issue was raised in parliament citing the nation’s security the Indian government had blacklisted all the numbers.
After much debate, the new rules of TRAI came into force. Under this, an IMEI can be given to only one mobile. On August 25, 2017, the department of telecommunications had issued a notification saying that anyone found tampering with IMEI number can face a three-year jail term.
The IMEI number is a unique identification or serial number that all mobile phones and smartphones have. IMEI number can be used to block a mobile phone from being used by another person or phone company if it has been lost or stolen.
Last year in November, Madhya Pradesh Police had also uncovered a similar scam under which over 1 lakh people across the country were using the same IMEI number. At the time too, the majority of handsets were manufactured by Vivo Communication Technology Co. Ltd.
“We have got details of 50,000 subscribers, whose phones had the same IMEI number. The total figure could be higher than 1 lakh. It’s shocking. Intelligence agencies and other security units have been alerted,” Jabalpur IG Vivek Sharma had said back then.
When a similar scam was already unearthed last year, the telecom authority should have been on its toes and monitored these Chinese companies vigilantly. The Chinese manufacturing companies like Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi have a major influence of Xi Jinping and CCP over them. Terrorists and other non-state actors can use these handsets and get away easily.