Google Blocks Dozens of Malicious Domains Operated by Hack-for-Hire Groups
Jun 30, 2022
Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) on Thursday disclosed it had acted to block as many as 36 malicious domains operated by hack-for-hire groups from India, Russia, and the U.A.E. In a manner analogous to the surveillanceware ecosystem , hack-for-hire firms equip their clients with capabilities to enable targeted attacks aimed at corporates as well as activists, journalists, politicians, and other high-risk users. Where the two stand apart is that while customers purchase the spyware from commercial vendors and then deploy it themselves, the operators behind hack-for-hire attacks are known to conduct the intrusions on their clients' behalf in order to obscure their role. "The hack-for-hire landscape is fluid, both in how the attackers organize themselves and in the wide range of targets they pursue in a single campaign at the behest of disparate clients," Shane Huntley, director of Google TAG, said in a report. "Some hack-for-hire attackers openly adver