Taliban insurgents posing as 'attractive women' on Facebook to lure Aussie soldiers

Sydney, Sept. 9 (ANI): Taliban insurgents are posing as 'attractive women' on Facebook to become friends with coalition soldiers and gather intelligence about their operations.

The dangers of using social media sites have been revealed in a federal government review of social media and defence, which was finalized in March, Australian defence sources said.ustralian soldiers are being given pre-deployment briefings about Taliban insurgents' plans of creating fake profiles to spy on them.

According to news.com.au, personnel have also been warned that geo-tagging, a function of many websites that secretly logs the location from where a post is made or a photo is uploaded, is a significant danger.

The review has warned troops to be aware of fake profiles which enemies create to gather information.

The report said that as many as 1577 defence members surveyed for the review had no awareness of the risk, adding 58 percent of the staff had no social media training.

"Most did not recognise that people using fake profiles, perhaps masquerading as school friends, could capture information and movements. Few consider the possibilities of data mining and how patterns of behaviour can be identified over time," the report said.

The report warned that family and friends of troops are also inadvertently jeopardizing missions by sharing confidential information online.

According to the report, three Australian soldiers were this month murdered inside their base, allegedly by an Afghan Army trainee. (ANI)