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KARACHI: An exposé by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Sunday Times has unearthed a gang of India-based hackers that targeted Pakistani politicians, military officials and diplomats to eavesdrop on private conversations at the behest of Indian secret services.
According to the report, the hacking gang, which operates under the name WhiteInt, is run from a fourth-floor apartment in a suburb of the Indian tech city Gurugram. Its mastermind is 31-year-old Aditya Jain – an occasional TV cybersecurity pundit who also holds down a day job at the Indian office of the British accountancy firm Deloitte.
The report says several of Jain’s political targets seem to have arisen from the continued tensions between India and Pakistan.
On 10 January this year he was tasked with breaking into the email account of Fawad Chaudhry, Pakistan’s then minister of information in prime minister Imran Khan’s government. Jain took a screenshot of Chaudhry’s inbox, which has been seen by this newspaper and the Bureau.
Jain’s team used malware to take over his computers and targeted the country’s senior generals as well as its embassies in Beijing, Shanghai and Kathmandu in a similar way. The most famous Pakistan-related target was Pervez Musharraf, the former president of the country.
Last month, Jain admitted that he had hacked people in the past but said he had not done so for several years. He claimed he did not know some of the people named on his database and denied hacking the others listed. “I can say categorically that I have not hacked, launched or attempted to hack any of these people,” he said.
The report claims that its investigation – based on the leaked documents and undercover work in India – can reveal:
- Orders went out to the gang to target the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason in May, three weeks after his appointment was announced.
- The president of Switzerland and his deputy were targeted just days after he met Boris Johnson and Liz Truss in Downing Street to discuss Russian sanctions.
- Philip Hammond, then chancellor, was hacked as he was dealing with the fallout of Russia’s novichok poisonings in Salisbury.
- A private investigator hired by a London law firm acting for the Russian state ordered the gang to target a British-based oligarch fleeing Vladimir Putin.
- Michel Platini, the former head of European football, was hacked shortly before he was due to talk to French police about corruption allegations relating to the 2022 World Cup.
- The hackers broke into the email inboxes of Formula One motor racing bosses Ruth Buscombe, the British head of race strategy at the Alfa Romeo team, and Otmar Szafnauer, who was chief executive of the Aston Martin team.
- The gang seized control of computers owned by Pakistan’s politicians, generals and diplomats and eavesdropped on their private conversations, apparently at the behest of the Indian secret services.
