'Hacking Team' and India Make Common Cause for Largescale Mobile Surveillance: Wikileaks

NEW DELHI: Wikileaks has released 440-GB data stolen this week through a major cyber attack on Italian cyber-surveillance firm Hacking Team. Email exchanges indicate that top Indian security agencies were secretly negotiating with the surveillance firm to procure software for intercepting communications through remote bugging of devices.

Hacking Team, as the name would suggest, is in the business of offensive hacking, with “cybersecurity” being a misnomer in the same way that “defence” -- which is more aptly termed offence -- is a misnomer. The firm sells its Remote Control System (RCS) software to law enforcement and national security agencies around the world, enabling them to hack into targets’ computers and mobile devices, install backdoors, and monitor them with ease.

“Hack into your targets with the most advanced infection vectors available. Enter his wireless network and tackle tactical operations with ad-hoc equipment designed to operate while on the move … Remote Control System: the hacking suite for governmental interception. Right at your fingertips” -- a promotional blurb for the company reads.

Although was Hacking Team does is quite clear, what has been less clear is exactly who it deals with. Like others in the cyber-security industry, the firm does not disclose its clients, the technology behind its software, or the sort of work it was contracted to do. This is where the Wikileaks leaked data comes in, and India -- perhaps unsurprisingly -- figures on the list.

Of the one million or so released emails, 3000 pertain to the firm’s Indian-centric activities beginning August 2011. The communication chain reveals details of the company’s dealings with the Research & Analysis Wing, the Intelligence Bureau and various state intelligence units.

The data reveals that Hacking Team reached out to the Indian government via third party vendors that recommended requirement-based solutions. The two major vendors in India that feature in the email archives are Israel-based NICE Systems, and industrial house SEMCO.

Customers addressed by SEMCO India in the emails include the Cabinet Secretariat, and intelligence units in Delhi, Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. Hacking Team representatives have also been in contact with the police in Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

The leaked data reveals that following the Bardhaman blast in West Bengal in October last year, the state police made repeated attempts to contact the Hacking Team for its product Galileo.

Galileo -- which the Italian firm seems most set on pushing in India -- is a platform independent undetectable Remote Control System.

The Hacking Team was mostly interested in pushing its flagship product Galileo, a platform-independent undetectable Remote Control System, that takes control of targeted devices and monitor them regardless of encryption and mobility.

The device can be installed if the user browses a particular website or installs an application on their smartphone. Galileo will then access all information -- location, files, screenshots, Skype calls, Facebook activity, Tweets, Whatsapp messages… the list goes on.