Hackers used Education Department ID to dupe victim of lakhs of rupees
Hackers used Education Department ID to dupe victim of lakhs of rupees
A cybercrime that took place about a year ago, involving the hacking of the e-mail ID of the Education Department of Delhi government, has come to light only now. In the incident, Atul Kaniyal, a resident of Rohini area, has alleged that he was conned by a person called Sumeet, who claimed to be referee to the Delhi government. Atul runs a company by the name of Divine Touch Winter Solution and also deals in computer-related businesses.
The victim met Sumeet a year ago through a common friend. Sumeet allegedly lured Atul by claiming that he could help him in getting tenders of maintenance of computers with the Education Department of Delhi government.
"Sumeet said that he will only charge legal fees from us in return. The accused filled the tenders and was in touch with us. I received the first e-mail of acknowledgement of filling of tenders from tenders@edudel.nic.in on June 15 at around 11 am. This was purportedly sent to me by the Secretary to the Directorate of Education. After a few hours I received another e-mail of acceptance of our tender by the Education Department. After this Sumeet contacted us and took two lakh rupees," said the victim.
Atul claimed he got suspicious about Sumeet when he started ignoring his calls. The victim tried to contact the Education Department on the same e-mail ID but all his messages bounced back. Atul then decided to approach the police.
"I registered a complaint with Narela police station as Sumeet was living in the area at that time. Narela police called me four to five times and promised action. A month passed but the cops did nothing expect giving me assurances. After that the police started ignoring me. They told me they were helpless and couldn't lodge an FIR as the accused had fled from the area. I even suspect some cops might have helped Sumeet escape. Now I have complained to the Commissioner of Delhi police I S Dadwal and other government officials and the Education Department," the victim said.
When contacted by this reporter, the Director of Education Department P Krishan Murthy said:u00a0 "I don't know about any such matter. If you have such documents in your possession give them to us and we will probe the matter. We can't say whether our email was used or it was hacked or not before going through the complaint and conducting an inquiry."
Meanwhile another official of the department, who did not wish to be named, said: "If something is amiss we will approach the police. We have taken documents from you and would like to conduct a departmental inquiry first in the matter. If the allegations are true the accused can be an insider."
"If the e-mail ID of the Education Department was used they should approach us. Then only will the police take any action,' said Deputy Commissioner of Police, outer district, Chhaya Sharma.
CYBER WARS
India and Pakistan are fighting a silent war in cyberspace. In the last two weeks, hacker groups from the two countries have defaced thousands of websites, sent trojans (viruses) to government-operated 'safe' networks, and planted spyware in the bureaucracy's email servers.
According to cyber experts, more than a thousand websites were hacked into and defaced on August 14 and 15, when Pakistan and India celebrated their Independence Days respectively. The day came as a nightmare for some website owners from the two nations. Pakistani hackers were the first to strike on August 14, when they defaced Indian sites. Indians returned fire the next day.
u00a0Hackers from both nations hacked into rival websites and posted flags of their countries. Two Pakistani groups, the Pak Cyber Army and PakHaxors took the lead. As per zone-H data, these groups have defaced around 10 to 20 websites. Retaliation from the Indian side was led by Indishell and Indian Cyber Army,u00a0 who claim to have defaced 1,226 Pakistani sites.
The Pakistani hackers intensified the volume and nature of the attack, resulting in the hacking of the official website of UB group chairman and Rajya Sabha MP Dr Vijay Mallya.
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