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Indian authorities face challenges in tracking bomb hoax calls due to VPN usage
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Civil Aviation Ministry urges VPN providers to cooperate with investigations
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Over 20 bomb threats made against Indian flights in the past week, causing disruptions
Indian authorities are struggling to track the origins of recent bomb hoax calls targeting flights due to the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). The Civil Aviation Ministry has revealed that VPNs have been used to conceal the caller’s location, making it difficult for investigators to trace the threats ¹.
To address this issue, the Ministry has urged concerned agencies to approach VPN service providers for assistance. By gaining access to user information from VPN services, authorities hope to track down the origin of the threats. VPNs encrypt and reroute internet traffic, masking the user’s identity and complicating law enforcement efforts ¹.
In the past week, over 20 bomb threats have been made against domestic and international Indian airline flights, causing widespread disruptions. Authorities have managed to trace some IP addresses linked to the threats to locations in London and Germany, but the use of multiple VPNs has made the exact origin difficult to determine ¹.
Investigative agencies, including the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), are working to unmask those responsible for the hoax threats. The Civil Aviation Ministry emphasizes the need for cooperation from VPN companies to balance individual privacy with public safety concerns ¹.