Reuters report exposing ``Indian rental hacker business'' deleted by court order


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The article ' How an Indian startup hacked the world' published by Reuters, a major news organization, on November 16, 2023, is based on a court order passed by a local court in India. has been temporarily removed. In response, Reuters has announced its intention to appeal this decision.

Editor's note
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-hackers-appin/

Indian Court Orders Reuters To Take Down Investigative Report Regarding A 'Hack-For-Hire' Company | Techdirt
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/07/indian-court-orders-reuters-to-take-down-investigative-report-regarding-a-hack-for-hire-company/



Reuters Takes Down Blockbuster Hacker-for-Hire Investigation After Indian Court Order

https://www.404media.co/reuters-takes-down-blockbuster-hacker-for-hire-investigation-after-indian-court-order/

An article published by Reuters on November 16, 2023 charges that ``In India, companies were hacked and data was stolen from politicians, international executives, prominent lawyers, and others.'' According to Reuters, since 2009, an Indian company called ``Appin Software Security'' has been contracting out systems intrusion and data hacking from other companies for over 10 years.

SentinelOne, a cybersecurity company that received data from Reuters and conducted its own analysis, said, ``The link between Appin Software Security and numerous data theft incidents has almost been proven. not only contained e-mails of government officials in Pakistan and China, but also evidence of defacement attacks against community sites for Sikhs, a religious minority in India. Evidence of hacking of Sikh Gmail accounts has also been discovered .'

In response to these reports, the New Delhi District Court in India issued an order on December 4, 2023, requiring Reuters to delete the articles. In response to this, Reuters temporarily deleted the article. At the time of article creation, there is a text on the article page indicating that the article has been temporarily deleted as an 'editor's note.'

Editor's note
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-hackers-appin/



On the other hand, Reuters said, ``This article is based on interviews with hundreds of people, thousands of documents, and investigations with multiple cybersecurity companies,'' and stated that the article contained errors and inaccurate information. I strongly insist that it was not.

In addition, Reuters reports that in response to the New Delhi District Court's decision, ``We support the validity of the article and plan to appeal this decision.''

In India, which has problems with ``freedom of the press,'' there have been many cases where journalism has been restricted. In September 2020, the bank account of

the Amnesty International India branch, which conducted a campaign criticizing the Indian government for its oppression of human rights defenders, was frozen by the authorities. As a result, staff were laid off and Amnesty International ultimately closed its operations in India.



Additionally, in February 2023, authorities raided the Indian branch of the British public broadcaster, the BBC, which released a documentary criticizing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and recovered multiple accounts and financial files. It has been reported that it has been confiscated.

In addition, Reuters has not left a comment on 404 Media, a technology media that reported this matter.

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