Meta destroys an Indian company’s phishing network using hired hackers:- CyberRoot Risk Advisory is the second Indian company that Meta has taken action against for allegedly running bogus accounts used in purported attempts to hack into people’s phones, laptops, and internet accounts like their social media or emails.
An Indian company named CyberRoot Risk Advisory was running a network of phoney accounts on Facebook and Instagram, but Meta has shut them down. The main activities of this network, which consists of about 40 accounts, include social engineering and phishing, which are frequently used to deceive people into disclosing their login information to numerous online accounts all over the Internet.
CyberRoot Risk Advisory is the second Indian company that Meta has taken action against for allegedly running bogus accounts used in purported attempts to hack into people’s phones, laptops, and internet accounts like their social media or emails. The firm targeted business executives, attorneys, physicians, activists, journalists, and members of the clergy in nations like Kazakhstan, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Iceland with its hacking operations.
CyberRoot is a participant in the global market for surveillance-for-hire that focuses on individuals online in order to gather intelligence, trick them into disclosing information, and breach their devices and accounts. These businesses are a component of a vast industry that offers intrusive software tools and surveillance services to any client without restriction. These services are frequently used against competitors, competing businesses, and opposition politicians, journalists, and human rights activists.
Since late last year, Meta said, it has initiated legal action against spyware companies operating all over the world, including those in China, Russia, Israel, the United States, and India, who allegedly targeted individuals in around 200 different nations and territories.
Meta stated that CyberRoot used phoney accounts to establish bogus personas geared to win the trust of the people they targeted throughout the world, while it did not disclose detailed information about the scope of the company’s operations.
These personas assumed the identities of journalists, businessmen, and media personalities to appear more credible. In a few instances, CyberRoot also made identities that were almost exactly like accounts linked to their targets, such as their friends and family members, with only slightly different usernames, perhaps in an effort to fool individuals into participating, Meta said in a report on Thursday.
Including Gmail, Zoom, Facebook, Dropbox, Yahoo, OneDrive, and targets’ corporate email servers, the network run by CyberRoot spoofs the domains of popular email providers, video conferencing services, and file sharing tools. To steal the login information for the victims’ online accounts with various services, these domains were employed.
According to Meta’s investigation, “CyberRoot target people around the world, working in a wide range of industries, including cosmetic surgery and law firms in Australia, real estate and investment firms in Russia, private equity firms and pharmaceutical companies in the US, environmental and anti-corruption activists in Angola, gambling organisations in the UK, and mining companies in New Zealand.”