Unearthing a mega organised cyber crime syndicate, the CBI on Friday arrested an alleged hacker from Pune for illegally accessing over 900 e-mail accounts of victims based in India and abroad and selling the passwords to the clients at a premium.
The Indian mastermind of the multinational e-mail password theft Amit Vikram Tiwary was arrested from Pune following years of surveillance as part of a major multinational law enforcement operation. The agency on Friday registered two regular cases against suspect operators for hacking websites before arresting Tiwary and conducting searches at multiple locations.
The CBI conducted searches at two locations in Mumbai, one each in Pune and Ghaziabad. Tiwary is being brought to Delhi under a transit remand. Tiwary allegedly operated two websites www.hirehacker.net and www.anonymiti.com from Pune. The two websites allegedly offered access to e-mail accounts in exchange for a fee, varying from $250 to $500. The operators of these two websites illegally accessed over 900 e-mail accounts between February 2011 and February 2013. Out of these 900 accounts, 171 belong to victims located in India.
“Customers who wanted to have unauthorized access to other people’s e-mails, used to submit e-mail accounts for hacking to these websites. Upon receipt of the order the website operators used to gain access to such e-mail accounts and send a proof of such access to the customers. On receipt of payment from customers, these website operators shared the passwords with them,” the CBI alleged in its FIR. Payments were received through Western Union Money transfer and PayPal.
In addition to the search conducted at the residence of the main accused at Pune, the agency also raided the premises of his associates in Mumbai, besides a customer’s residence at Ghaziabad.
The present operation is the result of an international investigation coordinated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Combating Organised Crime of Romania and Ministry of Public Security, China.
“Similar operations are being conducted in Romania, China and the US. It is suspected that the number of e-mail accounts hacked may be much larger once data is collected and the accused person is interrogated,” the CBI said in a statement. Following the searches, the agency recovered computers, laptops and other equipment from the premises of the main accused and his associates. Preliminary probe points outs to the involvement of another website in a similar theft.
Tiwary has been booked under Section 379 (theft of information) of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of Section 66 (c) and certain stipulations of Section 43 of the Information Technology Act. The accused is an engineering graduate and operated the websites as part of his vocation. He is said to be the son of an army man, Colonel Vikram Tiwary.
“All angles are being probed in the matter and interrogation of the accused and deciphering the content of the seized computers will reveal the extent of compromised e-mails and data,” CBI Director Ranjit Sinha told reporters.