India’s spyware exposure widens

The enterprises across India see massive rise in stealthy data theft attempts as Kaspersky warns of growing spyware sophistication

Indian enterprises are witnessing a sharp escalation in spyware activity, with detections more than tripling in the first half of 2025, according to new data from Kaspersky. Between January and June this year, the cybersecurity firm’s enterprise solutions blocked over 2.18 lakh spyware attacks, marking a 273% surge from 58,578 incidents recorded in the same period last year.

Unlike conventional malware, spyware silently infiltrates systems to track user activity and extract sensitive data, including credentials, emails, and financial information. The proliferation of commercial spyware, often disguised as legitimate monitoring software, has blurred the line between lawful surveillance and cyber intrusion—enabling threat actors to remotely monitor calls, messages, and locations through zero-click exploits.

Commercial spyware: a growing global threat

Kaspersky’s report also flagged the rise of commercial spyware, a form of “legal malware” sold to governments and law enforcement agencies but increasingly misused against private organisations.

These sophisticated tools can intercept messages, track locations, eavesdrop on calls, and erase traces of their presence — often through zero-click vulnerabilities, meaning users don’t have to click on any links or attachments to get infected.

India’s spyware exposure widens

The report showed that spyware incidents against Indian businesses rose from 58,578 in H1 2024 to 2,18,479 in H1 2025, underscoring how cybercriminals are scaling their operations.

“The fact that spyware campaigns exploit both cutting-edge and older unpatched systems shows how persistent these actors are,” Singh added. “This is where threat intelligence becomes essential — helping organisations understand which spyware tools are active, how they operate, and where defences should be strengthened.”

From 1970 on, the CIA and its code-breaking sibling, the National Security Agency, controlled nearly every aspect of Crypto’s operations — presiding with their German partners over hiring decisions, designing its technology, sabotaging its algorithms and directing its sales targets.

Then, the U.S. and West German spies sat back and listened.

They monitored Iran’s mullahs during the 1979 hostage crisis, fed intelligence about Argentina’s military to Britain during the Falklands War, tracked the assassination campaigns of South American dictators and caught Libyan officials congratulating themselves on the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco.

 By - Aaradhay Sharma