Dua Zehra Naqvi
Following the recent international embarrassment due to unmasking of Indian espionage for Israel in Qatar, India is set to face another backlash from the international community. The state’s dark face lays bare once again with the revelations of her being involved in cyber espionage operations- this time on industrial level.
In a recent report by Reuters, the news agency unveiled a group of cyber espionage operatives based in India, functioning on a global scale. The report highlighted that, an Indian entity, Appin Software Security, has been diligently engaging in the provision of offensive security training and discreetly executing covert hacking services, strategically directing its endeavors towards governments and private entities across the world. The same was corroborated in the report by Sentinel-One, a reputable source in the domain of cybersecurity intelligence.
Appin, deemed the progenitor of hack-for-hire enterprises within the Indian domain, has been operational for no less than 14 years i.e. since 2009. The firm’s operational ambit extends across the world, which includes but is not limited to the United States, Norway, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Kuwait, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and sundry other regions.
The firm was engaged in extensive hacking activities, conducting large-scale cyber intrusions to pilfer information from political figures, global corporate leaders, notable attorneys and other individuals. It had established itself as a leading provider of cyber espionage services catering to private investigators representing major corporations, law firms and enjoyed an affluent clientele.
The primary targets of Appin’s cyber onslaughts, consistent with India’s incessant obsession with its perennial target, included Pakistan. The firm was operating under India’s external spy agency- Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the domestic spy agency- Intelligence Bureau, which provided military-controlled safe houses for its operatives.
Appin’s operations against Pakistan encompassed a wide range of targets, including social media, email accounts and government websites, compromising both professional and personal information belonging to the targeted officials.
It is pertinent to note that the current report is not an isolated account but a mere fragment of India’s strategic operations against Pakistan. A report published by ESET in the year 2013, for instance, highlighted similar Indian campaigns aimed at the pilferage of sensitive information and classified documents. The state faced over a thousand cyber-attacks between 2020 and 2022 alone, from another Indian group called ‘SideWinder’ aka Rattlesnake.
China, being the other archrival of India, also encountered similar attempts of espionage from the Indian side. In this milieu, Appin’s mission in the state involved operation Rainbow, which involved the penetration of Chinese military computers, stealing of information about missiles and radar systems and compromising several officials.
In addition to targeting international entities, the Bharatya Janta Party’s (BJP) government has utilized firms like Appin as a political tool to curb dissentions, particularly targeting civil movements such as those in Khalistan and Kashmir.
The unbridled expanse of Indian espionage in conventional, as well as cyberspace pose a serious threat to international community. The increasing Indian cases of intelligence based activities including defamation and indignation such as the one uncovered by the EU DisinfoLab against Pakistan, the use of spies internationally including those caught in Qatar (eight Indian ex-naval officers) and Pakistan (Ravindra Kaushik, Kashmir Singh, Akhil Dev and Kulbhushan Jadhav) and the extra-territorial assassination attempts e.g the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep
Singh Najjar, present indisputable evidences of India’s breach of international law.
The international community’s disregard for Pakistan’s long-standing concerns on this matter has allowed India to persist in such activities without any repercussions. In the face of increasing Indian illegal extra-territorial ambitions, such impunity would lead to grave consequences worldwide.
It is therefore imperative for the international community to take action against India to mitigate the prevalence of such activities that pose a threat to global security.
