Illegal hacking operatives, also known as “hack for hire” companies, are operating across India. They infiltrate emails and phones of VIPs and states for a fee paid by private investigators around the world, revealed an undercover investigation. The Sunday Times and Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that these hackers were found to be working for autocratic states, British lawyers and their wealthy clients.
Source- India Times
According to the sting operation undertaken by the Sunday Times and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, numerous Indian hackers have offered their services to investigators from authoritarian governments, British attorneys, and their rich clients in order to get into their email accounts and read their private conversations.
The undercover reporters set up a fake corporate investigation firm in Mayfair, London called Beaufort Intelligence. They then contacted some of the top alleged hackers in India saying they wanted to gain private information on the targets of their clients. According to the investigation based on leaked documents and undercover work in India earlier this year, journalists posing as former MI6 agents turned private investigators claim that one such gang took control of computers of Pakistan’s politicians, generals and diplomats.
Source- Mint
Indian hackers owing to a huge demand are earning thousands of dollars by working for private investigators world wide. The hackers feel that they can continue doing this as they won’t get caught as police in India have no idea about how this works. The team also came across a group of hackers operating from an office in Gurgaon under the name WhiteInt run by Aditya Jain, 31, a Deloitte staffer who moonlights as a hacker. The Sunday Times reported Jain as saying that he could get access to the email inbox of anyone in the world within 30 days.
For seven years, he has run a network of computer hackers who have been hired by British private detectives to steal the email inboxes of their targets using ‘phishing’ techniques, it claims. According to the research, Indian hackers often befriend their targets on social media before sending them an enticing link. By doing so, they unwittingly gave the hacker access to their inboxes by installing malware on their computers.
The report concluded by stating that the use of the Indian underworld to breach private email accounts and phones has become a common practice that’s been happening for years now.
