A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers, including Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse and Republican Congressman Pat Harrigan, has urged the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, to add three Indian companies—BellTroX, CyberRoot, and Sunkissed Organic Farms (formerly Appin)—to the Commerce Department’s entity list. This action would effectively prohibit U.S. businesses from transacting with these entities, restricting their access to critical technology such as software licenses and cloud infrastructure. The lawmakers accuse these hack-for-hire firms of conducting cyberattacks and targeted espionage against Americans, including business owners and their legal representatives, with the aim of manipulating ongoing litigation. They further allege that these firms have engaged in an “aggressive censorship campaign” to suppress public awareness of their activities, leveraging foreign courts to silence U.S. reporting.

The lawmakers’ letter, shared with TechCrunch, highlights that these mercenary hacking companies have stolen data from thousands of Americans and argue that their actions undermine fundamental constitutional rights by keeping the American public uninformed about cyber threats. The request to add the companies to the entity list follows extensive media investigations into the hack-for-hire industry, which have documented instances of hackers being paid to infiltrate the digital devices of executives, lawmakers, and military officials to gain advantages in legal proceedings. Notably, one of the companies, Appin, previously secured a global court order from an Indian court to force Reuters to remove its reporting on the company, an order that was later lifted after an appeal. The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation has also defended news organizations from legal threats initiated by Appin in an alleged campaign of “bullying and censorship” aimed at suppressing stories about its involvement in mercenary hacking. The lawmakers further assert that these hack-for-hire firms have operated at the behest of the Qatari government, with targets including a former senior Republican lawmaker. Source

This is a summary. Read the original at techcrunch.com.