New Delhi: Pakistan based honeytrap factory has intensified its attempts with 'brute force' to trick defence officers and their families into giving them sensitive information.

This factory employs good-looking men and women as well as social media experts and they get a hefty sum for every successful operation. From honeytraps to Love Jihad, Pakistan is exploring every possibility to get information and are not hesitating to target families of defence personnel either.

According to a senior NIA official, recently a daughter of an army officer was tricked by an ISI agent under the garb of Love Jihad. The agent later asked the woman for defence documents and threatened her mother too. Similarly, Pakistan's women honeytrappers are also working hard to gauge probable victims who can share defence related information.

"It all starts with a 'like' on the photo of a defence personnel and gradually the accused who is using a fake profile will like every photo uploaded by them. Later, they send a friend request and become their friend. ISI has also started targeting families of defence officers to get information," a senior intelligence official said.

Explaining the working of such traps, the official said, "Social media experts give them profiles of probables who can be targeted along with the details available on the Internet. An easy way to narrow down probables is if someone has put photos from any defence establishment, he or she can be targeted. Also, profiles which have mentioned any link with defence forces is considered an easy target. Sometimes they target a person who has no link with the Indian Army,"
In one such case, a 23-year-old man from Rohtak with no defence association was honeytrapped by the ISI because he had falsely mentioned in his profile that he was working in the army and had even posted few photos of army recruitment camp. "Gaurav Kumar supplied details about army recruitment process and also sent photos of camps which he visited. He was targeted by ISI through two women's profiles to whom he sent the details."

Similarly, on Monday an engineer employed with BrahMos Aerospace, Nishant Agarwal, was arrested for espionage. He was allegedly in touch with a Pakistan-based handler through two Pakistan-based fake Facebook profiles under the names 'Pooja Ranjan' and 'Neha Sharma'. 

Central intelligence agencies have warned government officers not to openly share details, flaunt photos of restricted locations on social media. Also, agencies have advised not to mention specific departments/unit/wing etc on social media sites.