Are Banned Apps Really Banned?

Security threats on the internet have always been a major concern, but over the years, it’s the cracked versions of banned apps working from under the seams, that are giving the governments a hard time. 

India has a host of applications available in the market. For anything that you can think of, there’s an app to the rescue. Right from booking a cab to ordering your favourite food, apps are used for chores all through the day. This popularity and dependency of apps has given birth to another format of applications -- the APK.

Famously known as The Android Package (APK), it is a file format used by the Android operating system that enables users to install apps. It mainly contains files such as manifest, layout files, and classes.dex, etc, which can easily be generated from APK Andriod Bundles.

Another version of Mod APK allows users to unlock inaccessible features, i.e. countering subscription plans or the latest app version. Users recommend downloading Mod from a ‘trusted source’ since unknown sources can invite malware and dangerous codes, leading to vulnerabilities that bypass authentication – with all your data out in the open. 

A recent study by Appknox says that 75% of India’s top 100 Android apps contain security risks, with even the most prominent ones lagging on the most basic security checks. 

(Security and Privacy Perceptions of Third-Party Application Access for Google Accounts, November 2021)

Moreover, Google provides application programming interfaces (APIs) to enable authenticated third-party services by accessing a user’s account data. Such access could pose privacy risks, with the third-party applications having unforeseen privileges to the account. 

But what about apps that are accessible to users even after being banned?

Access to banned apps – a security breach 

Last week, Minister of State (MoS) for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Rajeev Chandrasekhar announced that the government has blocked access to a total of 348 apps, citing alarming concerns about the collection and transmission of data to servers outside of India. 

However, back in 2020, when the ministry banned 59 apps in India, it was the first-ever ban on a mass scale. The government had said that the apps in question were “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state, and public order”. The entire nation was taken aback. But the real question is how are these apps still accessible to many of us? 

One internet search on ‘how to use banned apps in India’ would flood your screens with endless results. But it’s not as easy as downloading it from a reliable source. 

List of apps banned in 2020 (Press Information Bureau, Government of India, June 2020)

One of the most popular ways of accessing these is through the VPN (Virtual Private Network), where the user can hide the IP address to access free content forbidden in real locations. Using a reliable VPN cannot harm, but not doing so can make the user susceptible to cyber-attacks. 

According to Simon Migliano, global VPN usage rose by 54% throughout 2019. India and Indonesia are increasingly adopting VPNs, leading to the ‘invasion’ of reliable VPN solutions in the mobile space and the need for security. India had the most explosive growth of 405% from 57 million downloads. As the adoption rates are high, the security concerns rise hand-in-hand. 

Source: top10vpn

Due to the ongoing geopolitical rift with China, the government of India continues to ban apps over data breach concerns. Users, however, are still finding ways to access these applications, but are the security concerns really being addressed?  

“I downloaded TikTok and Camscanner on my new phone and use them almost every other day. VPNs have always provided a big loophole,” one user told Deccan Herald. 

What does this mean to the government?

Right from the first recorded digital attacks in 2004, a study by Surfshark says that India is the sixth most breached country in the world. This means that 18 out of every 100 Indians have had their details breached since 2004. The Indian government has already received reports on the banned apps re-entering the market in new formats. 

But what about the versions available outside of third-party app stores? 

The National Cyber Security Policy 2013 was a policy framework implemented to monitor and protect users from cyberattacks. With the significant increase in cybercrime activities, cyber threats with such complexity call for a need to review the rule. Doing so would strengthen the cyberspace economy in the country. 

India has certainly defended large cyber attacks in the past, but it’s screaming for a better implementation of policy. The internet is a vast space, and we are all connected to the web. But it’s equally necessary not to fall into its trap.