Obscure Indian Cyber Firm Spied On Politicians, Investors Worldwide (reuters.com) 16
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A little-known Indian IT firm offered its hacking services to help clients spy on more than 10,000 email accounts over a period of seven years. New Delhi-based BellTroX InfoTech Services targeted government officials in Europe, gambling tycoons in the Bahamas, and well-known investors in the United States including private equity giant KKR and short seller Muddy Waters, according to three former employees, outside researchers, and a trail of online evidence. A cache of data reviewed by Reuters provides insight into the operation, detailing tens of thousands of malicious messages designed to trick victims into giving up their passwords that were sent by BellTroX between 2013 and 2020. The data was supplied on condition of anonymity by online service providers used by the hackers after Reuters alerted the firms to unusual patterns of activity on their platforms. On the list: judges in South Africa, politicians in Mexico, lawyers in France and environmental groups in the United States. These dozens of people, among the thousands targeted by BellTroX, did not respond to messages or declined comment.
Researchers at internet watchdog group Citizen Lab, who spent more than two years mapping out the infrastructure used by the hackers, released a report here on Tuesday saying they had "high confidence" that BellTroX employees were behind the espionage campaign. "This is one of the largest spy-for-hire operations ever exposed," said Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Railton. Reuters was not able to establish how many of the hacking attempts were successful.
Researchers at internet watchdog group Citizen Lab, who spent more than two years mapping out the infrastructure used by the hackers, released a report here on Tuesday saying they had "high confidence" that BellTroX employees were behind the espionage campaign. "This is one of the largest spy-for-hire operations ever exposed," said Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Railton. Reuters was not able to establish how many of the hacking attempts were successful.
Spying on politicians is perfectly acceptable (Score:1)
Let's see the info, before the election
This is different from obscure American firms how? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
These spying jobs were outsourced to India.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:This is different from obscure American firms h (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
"Trivial". I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Re: (Score:2)
Quit sending data in clear text. Likewise, do not store in clear text.
You want back doors to stop? If you look carefully at the backdoors going into companies, you will see that nearly 100% of them are in companies that OFFSHORED. For America, most of it is to India. Who is India's closest ally? Not America. It is Russia.
Europe is now using China for offshoring coding. VW and subsidiaries will be disasters in their code. However, their use of Chinese telephony, instead of their
You know they're scary because (Score:2)
Hmmmm.... (Score:1)
New Delhi-based BellTroX InfoTech Services targeted....
BellTroX --> BexTroll
No big deal (Score:3)
And for those of you thinking that this was just for limited spying, I would guess that their #1 client was Russia.
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking that the other 10,000 emails are just a smokescreen they're using to get away with spying on me.
Good (Score:1)
Yay! Spy on the rich. They spy on us. The only problem I see here is "obscure". That means it's simply the rich paying to spy on other rich so they can transfer wealth between themselves. No benefit to the norms.
Probably (Score:1)
looking for boobs and vageen.
Re: (Score:2)
You misspelled bobs and vagene
Nothing new under the sun (Score:3)
No surprise - espionage for profit is nearly as old as civilization.
but nyt (Score:1)