How a young man hacked the Mumbai Police website, became notorious, and got caught

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://scroll.in/article/909663/how-a-young-man-hacked-the-mumbai-police-website-became-notorious-and-got-caught

By Bhupen Patel
Scroll.in
January 16, 2019

In early June 2001, I started receiving anonymous calls from someone who 
sounded like he could not be more twenty-two years old. He never told me his 
name and every call was to inform me about his hacking achievements. Sometimes 
he would say he had hacked websites in other countries or institutions to show 
how vulnerable they were to cyberattacks. I could tell he was passionate about 
establishing himself in the digital world the way I wanted to make it big in 
journalism, and I felt a strange sense of connection to him.

Though none of this was printable, I nurtured him as a source, anticipating 
that he would be useful to me some day. Neither of us insisted on meeting each 
other, but we kept in touch over the phone and at times discussed his motives 
for hacking.

But what brought us closer was something beyond my wildest imagination.

One evening, a call on my office landline became a turning point for my career. 
It was him. But his voice sounded different. There was a mix of excitement, 
fear and anxiety in his tone, and it was obvious that he had done something 
big. "I hacked the Mumbai Police’s website," he said.

Now I was scared because I could possibly be considered an accomplice.

I said, "Abey, bahut marenge tereko, tu ghar pe bola kya" (They will beat the 
hell out of you. Did you tell your family)? I had hoped he was kidding, but he 
replied, "You think this is a joke? I am very serious. Go to their website and 
you will see that their homepage is disrupted."

I immediately logged in and saw that the homepages of two sites -- 
cybercellmumbaicity.com and www.ccicmumbai.com -- displayed the Information 
Technology Act and other laws pertaining to IT Act violations. He wanted to 
call out the cops for letting their guard down.

[...]

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