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techrise · 3 years

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Hybrid Warfare: Indian APT Groups Building Large-Scale Phishing Campaigns

APT C-35 Indian Mercenaries As the unconventional methods of a multi-domain warfighting approach have been growing in the name of hybrid warfare, India is now sparing no efforts in targeting the domestic fault lines that encompass the political, social, economic, and religious factors.

Several Indian APT groups have now sped up collaboration on and executing scams, fraud, and large-scale targeted phishing campaigns to counter foreign attacks in the digital space. Such activities have brought a rise in overall hybrid warfare since every country is extensively pursuing it to destabilise, demoralise and disintegrate their core adversaries.

Due to its conflicting nature, Pakistan remains one of the biggest adversaries of India in South Asia. It has been blamed for not allowing regional peace and integration while escalating cyberwarfare with India. Since it has been linked with the Taliban at an international level, India has also radicalised militant groups in Pakistan and is supporting the dissidents in Baluchistan taking help from private actors.

Cyber risks in India exist both domestically and from foreign actors as the legal and regulatory framework to deal with this, still seems to be under process. As a result, the private actors are using cyber-attacks and subversion, disinformation campaigns, economic manipulation, proxies and insurgencies, diplomatic pressure, and military actions, to inflict harm to the adversaries rather than engaging in open hostilities.

Recently, it was reported that APT C-35 Indian mercenaries launched several phishing websites and mobile apps relating to Referendum 2020 as bait to target pro Khalistan Sikhs in India. The ransomware named “Sarbloh” was designed to target entities connected with farmers’ protests in India, with the hacker group titled Khalsa Cyber Fauj reported to be leading the attack in the country.

The Khalistan delusion makes an appearance every time the Sikh community is in news. It was in 2020 when the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) in its newest publication released “Khalistan: A Project of Pakistan,” report, which included brief research upon the entire Khalistan movement by Terry Milewski. The veteran journalist discovered that the movement was a geopolitical project nurtured by Pakistan, threatening the national security of both the Canadians and Indians.

Milewski added that the Khalistan movement was going nowhere in the Sikhs’ home state but instead was Pakistan’s continued campaign of agitation, after failed Kashmir project. To counter similar future attempts, India is aiming to slowly take control of Pakistan’s cyberspace. Several private actors have emerged to help India fulfil the objective over time. It has overall extended the idea of hybrid warfare against Pakistan.

Back in 2019, the EU DisinfoLab alleged an Indian firm – Srivastava Group for building 750+ fake media websites. In the recent report, it accused the network of resurrecting the dead scholars and propagating the false news in the international media. Domains related to topics for India Chronicles, namely Gilgit Baltistan (gilgitnews.net, gilgitpost.net, and gilgittimes.com), Khalistan (khalistan.eu, khalistanfm.net, and radiokhalistan.net), Balochistan (balochnews.com, balochistantoday.org and .net), and Maldives (maldivesaffairs.com, maldivescurrent.com) were also found.

Clearly, the mission has been to dominate cyberspace and isolate Pakistan internationally while countering nations in conflict with India in Asia.

#APT C-35 Indian Mercenaries #EU DisinfoLab #Hybrid Warfare #Indian APT groups #Indian cyberwarfare #Khalistan Movement #Srivastava Group

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techrise · 3 years

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INDIA IS EMBROILED IN A WEB OF ALLEGATIONS OVER THE USE OF ISRAELI SPYWARE PEGASUS

The Fifth-generation war is a war of perspectives and India aims to improve its position by becoming the most targeting nation amid the changing war composition. In order to do so, the country is developing both the offensive and defensive cyber capabilities taking help from both the domestic and foreign firms.

A recently disclosed data that suggested India’s use of Israeli spyware – Pegasus has invoked huge criticism for the country. The investigation suggested that the Indian government is targeting its own citizens, although the country has named it baseless accusations.

Over time, powerful non-state groups that use asymmetric warfare tactics to attack the adversaries have emerged in India. The private actors serve India’s geopolitical and geo-strategic interests, giving rise to Indian cyberwarfare and hybrid warfare. Its cooperation with the foreign nations is helping it to attack the adversary’s cyberspace in the most impactful way.

The growing use of mercenaries, non-state actors, etc. is overall challenging the fundamental values of the world order. The states are using new war tactics – information warfare, hybrid warfare, disinformation campaigns etc. to deliver attacks.

India has been cooperating with Israel in the cyber field since 2018. Cybersecurity has become a growing and natural area of close cooperation between India and Israel. A cyber agreement was signed between both the countries to deal with the growing cyber threats amid rapid digitisation.

The move was considered as an important step in confronting the global cyber threats. A recent revelation stated that India has been an important customer of NSO Group of Israel. It used the NSO Group’s spyware to target phone numbers of politicians, dozens of journalists, and businessmen in the country.

The NSO client country is also accused of posing a huge threat to the neighbouring adversary – Pakistan, since the Israeli software has the ability to infect a device without the target’s engagement or knowledge.

Pakistan believes that the phone number previously used by the country’s Prime Minister Imran Khan was a part of surveillance hacking attempt via the Pegasus software and hence an investigation is in the process. Since the data is organised in clusters, it does not reveal the attack details of the NSO clients, thereby holding a total of 10 governments responsible for the attacks.

As per the Indian government, the Pegasus Project report was published by disrupters to help the obstructers in the Parliament. Meanwhile, the political parties are now demanding the Indian government to come out with the truth and their dealings with NSO Group.

It’s not the first time where India has cooperated with the foreign country in the cyber field. In the wake of growing cyber attacks from China, North Korea and Pakistan, the largest democracy in the world has also signed cyber agreements with the US and Russia. Simultaneously, it is building cyber offensive capabilities with the help of private actors.

Indian private firms like Phronesis, Aglaya, Dark Basin, and other APT groups like Viceroy Tiger, SideWinder, and APT C-35 have launched malware attacks against the adversaries. These firms are making sure that India continues to advance in the cyber offensive front while the cooperation and the national cyber strategy to make it better are intact.

About Pegasus:

Owned by the NSO Group, Pegasus spyware enables the remote surveillance of smartphones. It allows secret unlocking of the target’s mobile phone, including the contents, overall transforming it into a listening device. The Israeli firm claims that it sells spyware only to the vetted governments around the world to combat terrorism and other crimes.

#Hybrid Warfare #Indian APT groups #Indian cyber security #Indian cyberwarfare #Israeli firm #NSO Group #Pegasus Intelligence #Phronesis #SideWinder

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