US Congress members demand that India's “hackers for hire” be added to the sanctions list

A bipartisan group of American lawmakers has petitioned the US government to blacklist several companies that provide hack-for-hire services. Democratic senators Ron Wyden (Oregon) and Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island), together with Republican congressman Pat Harrigan, have sent Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick a letter demanding that three Indian firms be added to the department's entity list.

Landing on that list effectively bars American companies from doing business with the named organization and cuts off its access to critically important technologies — software licenses and cloud infrastructure.

Who stands accused

The companies in question are BellTroX, CyberRoot and Sunkissed Organic Farms — the last of which previously operated under the name Appin. According to the lawmakers, for more than a decade these firms carried out cyberattacks and targeted espionage against Americans, entrepreneurs and their lawyers in order to “manipulate ongoing court cases.” The hackers, the letter states, stole the data of thousands of US citizens and waged an “aggressive censorship campaign,” concealing information about their activities from the public.

The lawmakers stress that foreign entities are using overseas courts to keep Americans in the dark about cyber threats and to undermine citizens' constitutional rights. In their account, the companies acted “on behalf of the government of Qatar,” and among their victims was a former senior Republican lawmaker.

Censorship through the courts

Appin's case is telling: the company obtained a global injunction from an Indian court ordering Reuters to take down an article about it while an appeal was pending. In place of the removed piece there hung a notice stating that Reuters “stands by its reporting”; the injunction was later overturned and the article restored. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization, defended the outlets Techdirt and the MuckRock Foundation against legal threats after Appin launched what it called a “campaign of harassment and censorship.”

Appin's ties to Qatar had been noted before: there were reports of attacks on FIFA officials, allegedly organized to protect the country's plans to host the 2022 World Cup. The activities of BellTroX and CyberRoot were documented by The New Yorker and the research group The Citizen Lab.

Whether the Commerce Department will act on the request is unclear — its spokesperson did not respond to an inquiry. Qatar's representatives in Washington likewise answered with silence, as did the named companies themselves.

Source: TechCrunch