Saviours of cyber crime

Case 1: Several e-mails were sent from an e-mail id to people from the contact list stating that the user was stuck somewhere and urgently required a certain amount of money to be transferred to his account immediately. It mentioned an account number. A few contacts did transfer the money to the mentioned account number thinking that their friend needed it badly.

Case 2: Several people received an e-mail saying that a certain country wanted to park their money into their account as their account was safe and that they would earn some percentage out of this transaction. However, they were asked to pay a certain amount before the actual deposit of the amount into their account. Considering it to be safe and harmless members did so.

In both cases, several people were duped and conned of loads of money. The
complainants however did not lodge a complaint for about 10 months saying that they received death threats dreading them against filing any complaint.

The police called in 24-year-old Rahul Dutt Avasthy, an ethical hacker, to identify the source of the e-mails. Avasthy hacked into the culprits’ account and garnered information and helped the investigation.

An ethical hacker for the last four years, Avasthy has worked with the Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh police, working on a case-to-case basis and also was involved in the high profile Aarushi murder case.

A computer science graduate from Fergusson College, Avasthy is currently pursuing his business management degree but finds this ‘on and off’ profession as absolutely satisfying.

Rohan Vibhandik, 24, a certified and registered ethical hacker and an investigator at a private cyber security firm for the last four years, he works on a contract basis with companies to secure their configuration. Besides his private engagements, he has worked with the CID branch of Pune and has taken workshops on cyber law and ethical hacking technology for policemen and IT students.

“I have dealt with the creation of fake and obscene profiles on social networking sites. Also, there are cases of company’s data deletion,” he stated.

Both Avasthy and Vibhandik are a group of ethical hackers who are literally a computer and network expert who attacks a security system on behalf of its owners, seeking vulnerabilities that a malicious hacker could exploit.

According to cyber lawyer Praneet Kumar, there is a dire need for ethical hackers in today’s e-age, “Since most of our day to day operations — be it banking, shopping, billing are all done on computers, people become more prone to falling prey to any discrepancies arising through it. Hence they should be more cautious.”

Despite the demand in solving crucial cases, for many like Avasthy, ethical hacking is yet to be a full time profession. The absorption of ethical hackers into the system, be it the government or corporate firms is still few and far between.

While Hollywood flicks like Antitrust, The Net, Enemy of the State, War Games or Die Hard 4 have delved into the business of hacking, ethical hacking is not looked upon as serious business.

Kumar feels that the government has little knowledge about ethical hacking. Hence, “it is vital to absorb such technical experts into the police force.”

According to Vibhandik, it is the negative connotation attached to the term hacking that generated the need to prefix the term ethical.

“Both crackers (hackers) and hackers (ethical hackers) have the same level of intelligence and competence but the purpose and reason driving each of them are entirely different,” stated Vibhandik.

Elaborating on ethical hacking, Avasthy says, companies largely hire ethical hackers for penetration testing, i.e. to find the existing loopholes in the company’s system or products and then provide solutions. 

He feels, the Nigerian camp that has gained notoriety in cyber crime can be busted by ethical hackers with encouragement from the authorities. Having worked for international companies, Avasthy says that ethical hacking is a very high paying job and the money could run from a lakh to millions.

In fact Avasthy has tried to bridge the expertise of ethical hackers throughout the world by launching an online ethical hacking community(http://rahulhackingarticles.wetpaint.com/) with 30,000 members worldwide. Here members share and discuss ethical hacking tricks and post queries.

Apart from police and investigative cases which brings in these ethical hackers into the scene as and when needed, for some like Vibhandik, requests keep pouring from all and sundry. He has helped friends who have been on the receiving end too.