VLC media player has allegedly been banned in India

VideoLan Client or VLC for short is one of the most used software for playing videos on PC and other devices like Android and iOS. Its specialty is the wide range of supported codecs and the highly versatile interface.

Now, according to a recent report, the VideoLAN Project’s VLC media player has allegedly been banned in India. The ban was reportedly issued earlier this year (around 13th February) in a silent manner, and neither VideoLAN nor the Indian authorities provided any information on the matter.

In accordance with the ban, ISPs have blocked the official VLC media player website “www.videolan.org” across the country. It’s worth noting that users can still get the media player from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, indicating that the ban hasn’t been fully implemented.

According to some reports, VLC Media Player has been banned in the country because the platform was used for cyber attacks by the alleged China-backed hacking group Cicada. Security experts discovered Cicada was using VLC Media Player to deploy a malicious malware loader as part of a long-running cyber attack campaign just a few months ago.

The situation is quite peculiar as the VideoLan Project team is based in Paris and has no apparent connections to China. Currently, there is no official word from the government of India or the VideoLan Project team regarding the alleged cyber attack. As for users, if you already have a VLC media player installed on your PC, it will continue to work as usual. For people looking to download the app, you can still access the mirror sites that are still available to access in India.