VLC Media Player banned by Centre; hacking ploy suspected?

Popular and open-source video playing software VLC Media Player has been banned by the Indian government. Though the ban was imposed in February of 2022, it went largely unnoticed. It came to light now because the player’s developer company VideoLAN reached out to the internet for help.

The Indian government has not given any official reason behind banning VLC Media Player. Reports suggest that the media player was banned because it was used by China-backed hacking group Cicada for cyber attacks.

A few months ago, security experts discovered that the hacking group was using VLC Media Player to deploy a malicious malware loader as part of a long-running cyber attack campaign.

Since February 13, the VideoLAN website has been down, rendering users unable to download or update VLC Media Player. However, users who have already had the app already are able to access and use it.

Paris-based non-profit VideoLAN said that it has no idea why the government banned the platform.

Reasons behind ban mystery

On the blocked VLC Media Player website, a message reads, “The website has been blocked as per order of the Ministry of Electronics and Information technology under IT Act, 2000.” The ministry is yet to provide any explanation.

Jean-Baptiste Kemp, president of VideoLAN, wrote on Y Combinator-run Hacker News, saying, “We’ve asked the Indian government and we got no answer. We probably did not ask the right place though. I wish I knew how to ask properly. The weirdest is that some ISPs are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government?”

In June 2022, an internet freedom activist group called sflc.in filed a Right To Information (RTI) in the Ministry of Electronics and IT, seeking information about the app’s ban. However, the reply stated, “No information is available with this ministry related to http://videolan.org website”.

A user on Hacker News posted that the website is the safest platform to download the application from. He added that its absence will only push users to download unsafe versions of VLC Media Player. “Ironically, I’d expect banning the VLC website to increase VLC downloads from alternative sources, and thus increasing the possibility of the user downloading malware,” said a user named xNeil.

The media player is still available for download on the Apple app store and Google play store for smaller devices.