and European companies, three dozen advocacy and media groups and numerous Western business executives were the subjects of the Indian hack-for-hire attempts. The Reuters report quoted Anthony Upward, managing director of Cognition Intelligence, a U.K.-based countersurveillance firm saying, “It is an open secret that there are some private investigators who use Indian hacker groups to target opposition in litigation battles.” The cyber spies work for litigants seeking to gain an edge. These actors were called upon to interfere in lawsuits all over the world. For example, Reuters recently reported on thousands of email records exposing an Indian hack-for-hire group. Unlike MaaS, hack-for-hire activity appears to be much more targeted. The recent rise in Ransomware-as-a-Service has alarmed security experts across the globe.

Here’s what organizations need to know about this emerging threat to data security. The level of detailed information these groups can access is astonishing. “They also conduct corporate espionage, handily obscuring their clients’ role.” “We have seen hack-for-hire groups target human rights and political activists, journalists and other high-risk users around the world, putting their privacy, safety and security at risk,” Google TAG says. They target a wide range of users and exploit known security flaws when executing their campaigns.

In contrast to Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS), hack-for-hire firms conduct sophisticated, hands-on attacks.

Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) recently released a report about growing hack-for-hire activity.

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