The rise of India's cyber privateers

Running story
The rise of India's cyber privateers

Working in the shadows, Indian hackers for hire have played a role in every major business battle in recent years. Akin to the privateers of old, they operate for Indian intelligence by day and spend their nights subcontracting to those willing to pay for access to competitors' and rivals' emails. The service providers' modus operandi has been honed to perfection, with the collected contents of a target's inbox used in legal proceedings or laundered through media outlets. Intelligence Online was the first to reveal the existence of this veritable industry of hack and leak operations (HALO), and has been tracking the trade's progress ever since.

The rise of India's cyber privateers

Spotlight | Argentina, India, United Kingdom, United States
Hack for hire and Panama Papers: FBI bid to extradite Israeli investigator awakens Elliott's Argentine ghosts

Private investigator Amit Forlit's extradition hearing for alleged hacking in the US is causing concern in the corporate intelligence community of which he has been a key figure over the past decade.

LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 04.06.2024

Spotlight | India, United Kingdom, United States
Worldwide battle over Indian-run hacking for hire converges in North Carolina

The many facets of ENRC's legal battle with its former lawyer Neil Gerrard have all ended up before a court in North Carolina, USA. The Kazakh firm is helping businessman Farhad Azima seek proof that Gerrard ordered Indian firm CyberRoot to wage a cyberattack.

LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 23.08.2023

Spotlight | Bangladesh
How Bangladesh came by its cyber intelligence tools

Despite the supposedly strict export bans on dual use goods into the country, Bangladesh's intelligence services are not lacking in Western cyber intelligence equipment that fall into that category.

LogoSubscribers only Surveillance & Interception 18.08.2023

United Kingdom
Gerrard and del Rosso, caught up in RAKIA wrangle, launch two-pronged attack on ENRC

In the latest twist in a complex and lengthy corporate intelligence batttle, star lawyer Neil Gerrard and private investigator Nick del Rosso are looking to prove that ENRC is behind lawsuits aimed at discrediting both of them.

LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 14.06.2023

Spotlight | UAE, United Kingdom, United States
Hack for hire: ENRC aims to open up Dechert and Nick del Rosso's Pandora's box

Kazakh mining group ENRC is already pursuing a legal and investigative campaign of unprecedented scale and complexity. Now, it is overseeing the start of fresh legal action against its nemesis, Neil Gerrard, his old law firm Dechert, and, by the same token, Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 22.03.2023

United States
Dechert and del Rosso's counterattack against Azima and hackers for hire exposes ENRC's involvement

Investigator Nick del Rosso, accused of conspiring with a Dechert lawyer to conduct a hacking attack for a Gulf emirate, is launching a legal counteroffensive with the law firm. Against this backdrop, hackers for hire allegedly involved in the affair are having their own stand-off.

LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 22.02.2023

India, Israel, United Kingdom, United States
As hacking accusations against it mount up, CyberRoot strikes back in Indian courts

Indian cyber intelligence company CyberRoot is beating its own path in the face of the ongoing investigator and hacker-for-hire wars between ENRC-funded camps and those led by lawyer Neil Gerrard, Dechert and the Ras Al Khaimah emirate.

LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 05.12.2022

Spotlight | India, Israel, UAE, United Kingdom, United States
Indian hackers-for-hire gang war brings to surface role of Qatar and private investigators

A raft of recent lawsuits around the world involving hackers has revealed a vast and complex web of influence warfare operations that these cyber mercenaries were contracted to wage, especially on behalf of the Gulf.

Since 2018, Indian cyber criminals have increased attacks on targets in London, New York, Geneva, Paris, the Emirates, etc.
LogoSubscribers only Surveillance & Interception 24.11.2022
Since 2018, Indian cyber criminals have increased attacks on targets in London, New York, Geneva, Paris, the Emirates, etc.

Spotlight | Bangladesh
Technical intelligence service faces shrinking cyber offer

The National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre needs a partner to develop its Integrated Lawful Interception System at a time when Western cyber firms have been pulling out of the country.

Bangladesh's technical intelligence agency, the National Telecommunication Monitoring Center, is seeking a contractor for its strategic interception platform project.
LogoSubscribers only Surveillance & Interception 10.11.2022
Bangladesh's technical intelligence agency, the National Telecommunication Monitoring Center, is seeking a contractor for its strategic interception platform project.

Israel, United Kingdom, United States
Soriano and Psy-Group, revealed during RussiaGate, team up again

To promote his new compliance services for investors, Israeli private investigator Walter Soriano has called on former staffers from the defunct intelligence firm Psy-Group. Both parties were identified in a US Congress investigation as having worked for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Free access Corporate Intelligence 03.11.2022

Spotlight | United States
Legal battle draws hackers-for-hire and private investigators out of the woodwork

The US court battle between Kazakh conglomerate ENRC and lawyer Neil Gerrard is bringing elements of the hack-for-hire operation against former aviation magnate Farhad Azima out into the open. Underway behind the scenes is a Black PR campaign to discredit the body of evidence accumulated against Indian cyberspace hackers, corporate intelligence firms and Western lawyers.

LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 26.10.2022

Spotlight | Qatar
Former Indian cyber privateer Rajat Khare is helping Qatar keep the football World Cup safe

Entrepreneur Rajat Khare, who industrialised the practice of hacking for hire and now heads Luxembourg investment company Boundary Holding, keeps up close relations with Qatar. He has helped companies in his investment portfolio to win security contracts at this year's FIFA World Cup.

LogoSubscribers only Surveillance & Interception 20.10.2022

United Kingdom, United States
Former FBI officer Mark Rossini in legal spat over consulting for Walter Soriano and CT Group

After a lengthy period below the radar after his departure from the FBI, Mark Rossini is in the spotlight again for his work with intelligence consultant Walter Soriano and with the influence firm CT Group in Puerto Rico.

LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 07.09.2022

Qatar, United States
Qatar strengthens ties with the US as it tries to go sovereign in cyber

By teaming up with the American consulting firm JMH Group, the Qatari conglomerate Salam International is trying to take advantage of the rapprochement between the two countries to form new partnerships, particularly in cyber.

LogoSubscribers only Surveillance & Interception 06.09.2022

Europe
Russian Monaco magnate Rybolovlev, a corporate intelligence saga through the years

In his Monaco villa, Dmitry Rybolovlev remains one of the few Russian businessmen in the West to have escaped sanctions over the Ukraine war. Such measures would be a blow to the whole European corporate intelligence sector, for he has become one of its biggest clients.

Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev.
LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 17.08.2022
Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev.

Russia
Ruselectronics at centre of Russian Safe City monitoring programme

Border surveillance, which has returned to the top of the list of critical projects carried out by the Rostec arms conglomerate, is mobilising all the know-how of its subsidiary Ruselectronics. Moscow has decided to move up a gear in the Safe City programme.

LogoSubscribers only International Dealmaking 01.07.2022

India, Israel, United States
Wirecard: Aviram Azari's guilty plea sets alarm bells ringing at Arcanum

The recent revelation of Israeli private investigator Aviram Azari who linked Indian hacking operators to Western clients has the potential to expose the US corporate Intelligence firm.

LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 26.04.2022

India, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Corporate raider Nat Rothschild exposes his relationship with Indian ex-hacker Rajat Khare

Financier Nat Rothschild, a member of the British branch of the Rothschild family, has taken over an Indian IT company in partnership with Rajat Khare, well-known to readers of Intelligence Online as an Indian "hack for hire" pioneer.

LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 17.03.2022

Spotlight | United States
Amit Forlit latest target in RAK princes' hacking wars

Determined to expose the chain of command that hacked and leaked his emails allegedly under instructions from the Ras Al Khaimah authorities, ex-agent Farhad Azima is now focusing on Amit Forlit, an Israeli corporate intelligence veteran who knows his way round the Indian hackers-for-hire world.

LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 16.03.2022

Spotlight | United Kingdom, United States
Israeli Corporate Intelligence veteran Amit Forlit dragged into Ras al Khaimah battles

Legal efforts to corner Neil Gerrard, the arch-enemy of Kazakhstan's ENRC group, are gathering pace on three continents, increasingly exposing the activities of the intelligence firms involved and endangering the existence of Britain's Serious Fraud Office.

LogoSubscribers only Corporate Intelligence 26.01.2022


Sign up for real-time alerts and be notified of new editions!  

Once registered, you will be notified by a short message on your computer or mobile phone as soon as a new edition of our publication or an alert is published. Stay informed anytime, anywhere!