The Hindu : New Delhi News : Official’s e-mail account hacked

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Thursday, Nov 08, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

Official’s e-mail account hacked

Devesh K. Pandey

The officer is a Joint Secretary in the Union Agriculture Ministry
Mails have been sent in his name to his contacts seeking financial help

NEW DELHI: The e-mail account of a Joint Secretary in the Union Agriculture Ministry has allegedly been hacked and mails have been sent in his name to his contacts seeking financial help.

According to an FIR lodged at the Parliament Street police station, the senior Government official has alleged that his e-mail account that he used for all official correspondence was hacked on November 1 morning. He further alleged that using his mail account, someone posing as him has been sending mails to his contact persons, including top Government and private company functionaries, seeking financial help claiming that he was in trouble somewhere abroad.

In response to those fake mails, the complainant started getting calls from his contacts enquiring about his well-being. The complainant told the police that he was unable to access his mail account any more. On the basis of the complaint, the Economic Offences Wing of the Crime Branch lodged the FIR at the Parliament Street police station on Tuesday and initiated investigations.

While the police are trying to find out the nature of the fraud and identify the culprit, a senior police officer said incidents of fake e-mails seeking financial help on different pretexts are on the rise. In several cases it has been found that unsolicited mails are sent as spam using addresses of persons known to recipients. This is done probably using software that extract e-mail addresses from the list of contacts of an Internet user to send the malicious mails.

In a recent incident, a Faridabad-based non-government organisation found that its e-mail account had been “hacked” by someone. It was suspected to be a variant of “Nigerian Scam”, wherein people get unsolicited mails offering handsome cuts in a financial deal involving huge amounts of money.

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