US lawmakers seek blacklisting of three Indian hack-for-hire firms

WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Three U.S. lawmakers are urging the American government to blacklist a group of Indian IT firms, pointing to what they describe as “more than fifteen years of targeted espionage against U.S. citizens, businesses, and the lawyers representing them.”

In a letter sent Wednesday, Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse and Republican Representative Pat Harrigan asked the Commerce Department to add BellTroX, CyberRoot, and Sunkissed Organic Farms Pvt. Ltd.—formerly known as “Appin Technology Pvt. Ltd.”—and its subsidiaries to the department’s Entity List. The designation would cut them off from U.S. software, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity tools.

Representatives for Sunkissed, CyberRoot, and the Commerce Department did not respond to requests for comment. BellTroX could not be reached for comment.

Media coverage and reports from large technology companies have portrayed all three companies as fronts for hack-for-hire activity.

Reuters reported in 2022 that CyberRoot and BellTroX were central actors in the cybermercenary trade, often engaged by Western lawyers and private investigators to conduct surveillance on opposing parties during legal and business conflicts. In a 2023 report, Reuters called Appin a pioneer of the field, describing how it expanded from an education-focused startup into a hack-for-hire powerhouse that extracted secrets from executives, politicians, military officials, and wealthy elites across the world.

Company executives at all three firms have denied any wrongdoing.

The New Yorker and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism are among other publications that have identified the companies as hackers-for-hire. Facebook owner Meta Platforms and Alphabet-owned Google have done so as well, and together they have published three reports about hacking activity connected to the firms.

Reuters is involved in litigation in India with a group that calls itself the Association of Appin Training Centers. The group says it represents Appin alumni and alleges that Reuters damaged the reputations of training centers and their students, a claim Reuters disputes. The case is continuing.