Appin (company)

Appin was an Indian cyberespionage company started in 2003 and run by brothers Rajat and Anuj Khare. Although it initially started as a cybersecurity training firm, by 2010 the company had begun providing hacking services for governments and corporate clients. In 2013, a report by Shadowserver Foundation pointed to evidence linking Appin to several hacks of high-profile organizations.

The company offered what its founders termed "ethical hacking" services. Appin reportedly hacked into private computers on behalf of both government and private clients. The firm rebranded in 2022 and its employees went on to form other similar firms including CyberRoot Risk Advisory and BellTroX InfoTech Services.

Controversies
Appin and co-founder Rajat Khare have pressured news sources in multiple countries, including France, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, to remove references in articles to the company and Khare.

On November 16, 2023, Reuters published an article about the company titled, "How an Indian Startup Hacked the World." The article alleged that Appin "grew from an educational startup to a hack-for-hire powerhouse that stole secrets from executives, politicians, military officials and wealthy elites around the globe."

Appin sued Reuters, claiming the news agency had engaged in a "defamatory campaign." It obtained an injunction from a Delhi court and, on December 4, 2023, Reuters temporarily removed its article. Reuters said that it stood by its reporting. An archived version of the Reuters article hosted on the Wayback Machine was likewise removed following demands from lawyers representing Appin co-founder Rajat Khare. Appin further sent demands to Meta Platforms, LinkedIn and Naukri.com to block accounts associated with the authors of the Reuters story.

In February 2024, Wired reported that lawyers for Appin and a related entity called the Association for Appin Training Centers have filed lawsuits and made legal threats against more than a dozen news organizations. Appin sent emails demanding news site Techdirt and the organization MuckRock which hosted some of the information Reuters relied on. The two sites denied that the injunction was binding on them. Other sites, such as the Lawfare blog, removed material based on the Reuters article.