A new report by cyber security company SentinelLabs has made a big claim regarding cyber attacks on law enforcement agencies of Pakistan. According to the report, between February 2024 and April 2026, suspected hacker groups associated with India and China targeted several police agencies of Pakistan in separate operations. Most of the attacks were on the systems of Balochistan Police, where hackers were successful in accessing the servers and online portals of the police. However, the report also says that in many cases concrete evidence of data theft has not been found and many conclusions are based on technical analysis. However, China has denied these allegations.
Why did Balochistan Police become the biggest target?
According to SentinelLabs, four separate cyber espionage campaigns were conducted between February 2024 and April 2026, all of which targeted Balochistan Police systems at some level. According to the report, the hackers accessed network equipment, email gateways, web servers and seven different online applications. These included records of police personnel, data of stolen vehicles, hotel guest registration, fingerprint based criminal records, landlord-tenant registration, FIR system and citizen complaint portal. Although the report said that evidence of access to these systems was found, in most of the cases data theft was not confirmed.
Malware in complaint portal, but no evidence of data theft
According to the report, the most serious intrusion took place in the complaint management system of Balochistan Police. This is the portal where citizens register complaints about crime, missing documents or against the police. Hackers uploaded two malware files to the live folder of this portal, which were shown as normal software updates. Their objective was to infect the devices of police personnel or common citizens using the portal. However, SentinelLabs has clearly stated that it could not advance to the next stage of the malware, nor did it find evidence of any actual data theft or successful infection.
On what basis did the report link India and China?
SentinelLabs said it divided the four hacking campaigns into four groups based on different malware, command and control servers and technical patterns. Of these, three groups are considered to be linked to China and one group is considered to be linked to India. According to the report, the India-linked group has been linked to TAG-179 tracked by cyber security company Recorded Future. At the same time, the interest of China-related groups may be related to the security of Chinese citizens working in Pakistan and CPEC projects.
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