Cyber ties between Gulf and India continue to grow despite religious tensions
India has a strong and budding stake in preserving stability and cyber-related projects in the Gulf Nations. From ‘Partnership & participating in the cyber events’ to providing aid in the cyber warfare situations, India is expanding its Intelligence network and partnership with the Gulf Nations.
The recent controversy related to the Prophet of Islam in India created disturbance all over the media. In order to maintain the historical bonds between India and Middle Eastern Nations, the administration department of India promptly focused on the requirements of Gulf Nations by respecting their religious sentiments.
India and Arab nations share a huge amount of mutual economic dependencies, which include food, security, renewable and nuclear energy, education and skill development, the defense industry and counter-terrorism, biotechnology, space, electronics, information technology, artificial intelligence, and machine learning (AIML), cyber security, cloud-based solutions and more.
Very recently, Stagwell (Global marketing and communication group) declared the development of its global footmark across the MENA region with three affiliated partnerships public relations and marketing network Orient Planet Group, Data-driven strategy consulting firm, Phronesis group, and Events and talent management firm FLC.
In February, the Indian army and Saudi came into the association which included Intel sharing and Counter-terrorism. On 16th Feb 2022, Commander of Royal Saudi Land Forces General Fahd Bin Abdullah Mohammed Al- Mutair visited India for signing the bilateral defense ties between New Delhi (Capital of India) and Riyadh (Capital of Saudi Arabia). The agreement consists of Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security, Intelligence sharing, and counter-Terrorism.
There are many Indian Cyber actors like Phronesis, Aglaya, Secfence Technologies, Stratign (Alias Shoghi Communications), and Clear Trail technologies that are serving their Intelligence services to the Middle Eastern nations.
The Gurugram-based Intelligence firm ‘Phronesis’ (Founded by Brig. Ram Chillar) has expertise in OffSec playground and is currently also heading Cyph3r. The services of this intelligence firm are also admired in Emirates/UAE, for its inclusive intelligence and due attentiveness that it provides for highly complex situations.
Aglaya (India-based government surveillance supplying firm, headed by Ankur Srivastava) is allegedly affiliated with UAE-based Darkmatter. According to the leaked emails of CyberPoint(a firm that worked with DarkMatter on a Contractual basis) suggest that Aglaya integrated with the hacking team, a surveillance peddler, to render what looked like surveillance equipment to the UAE Government.
The Indian IT giant Secfence Technology (headed by Atul Agarwal) developed its capabilities to render its cyber security infrastructure to various regions around the globe, including the Middle East. Last year ‘Secfence Technology’ participated in the ISS World surveillance fair 2021(Dubai)where the firm enlightened its potential and ability to use malware applications that exploits communication channel used by legitimate applications for putting a check on hostile elements.
Indian cyber actors, ClearTrail Technology and Stratignhave also served their participation in the Intelligence Support System (ISS) World Middle East and Africa 2022 that was held in Dubai, UAE. The firm ClearTrail Technology presented state-of-art solutions for lawful interception, IP data investigations, and open-source intelligence.
The Dubai- based cyber-Intelligence firm Stratign headed by Anant Bindal (also known as Shoghi in India) participated in the ISS Middle East and Africa 2021 in which they explored their Latest Technological Progresses in the domain of Defence and Cyber security; from Communication Interception System to Jamming Equipment. In 2022, Stratign holds an apex Position worldwide in communication interception, Signal Processing Systems, and communication security systems.
The association was not only from the side of India. In fact, in February 2021, UAE too has set up a branch of its publicly owned cyber company ‘Digital 14’ (previously known as DarkMatter). The firm Digital 14 is headed by Sanjiv Jain and Deep Datta in India.
The mentioned cyber ties indicate that political and religious issues are kept at bay while deciding on mutually beneficial cyber projects between Gulf and India.
