Hack's effect
By: Aditya Anand
October 24, 2007
Hacker breaks into dance critic Padmashri Sunil Kothari’s e-mail id; sends mail saying he is stranded in Africa and needs money. Friends have already sent over Rs 6 lakh to the fraudster and the amount is still rising
Look What They Did!
The e-mail was sent from Padmashri Sunil Kothari’s account on September 30.
Pic/Shadab Khan
Noted dance critic, Padmashri Sunil Kothari who is in Africa for an AIDS awareness programme lost his bag containing his passport, documents and other valuables in a taxi.
Kothari is in such a desperate situation that he does not even have the money to pay his hotel bills.
He is seeking aid by asking people to transfer money through an account in Western Union Money Transfer.
Fell for Kothari’s plight and thought of sending some money to help him?
You are not the only one. More than 1,000 people on Kothari’s e-mail address book, many of them leading personalities like Mrinalini Sarabhai, Aditi Mangaldas, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha, director of the Edinburgh Film Festival — Morag Deyes, Geeta Raja, Dominique Delorne of Paris and Jai Govinda of Vancouver have fallen for the same mail and donated lakhs.
Kothari who is presently in Mumbai for work, has not been to Africa in the last five years. His yahoo e-mail account was hacked into on September 30 and e-mails seeking money for him were sent out by the hacker.
Kothari couldn’t access his account after that as the hacker had also changed his password, but he assumed there was some server problem.
The matter came to light on October 2 when Sharmishtha, a Kathak-dancer, called him to check if he was fine.
Warning on dance website
Kothari still does not know how much money has been transferred due to the fictitious e-mail. “So far, I think the amount that has been transferred for me is about $15,000 (Rs 6 lakh). But there could be many others,” he said.
He added that Anusha Lal, also a dancer, responded to the e-mail and ended up having her own e-mail hacked.
Kothari, who has approached the Central Bureau of Investigation’s cyber crime cell, said “The e-mail company has informed me that not much can be done to restore my hacked e-mail account since the password has been changed and I do not remember the answer to the secret question,” he said.
He added that the e-mail account was a decade old and that the e-mail service provider was outside Indian jurisdiction.
“I am worried as people still continue contributing money to the hacker,” said Kothari. Kothari has now put up a letter on dance website narthaki.com telling them about the hacked e-mail.
How it was done?
Password to the email account was stolen through phishing
Mail seeking help was sent from that email id to his friends and contacts
Money sent by his contacts were pocketed by the fraudster
Source :
http://www.mid-day.com/
Info by : Aditya Anand [aditya.anand@mid-day.com]
PS : this is a nice article by aditya in Wed MIDDAY .... & warn ppl that EMAILS CAN B HACKED & misused ...... so bware ....
& simple point, even YAHOO cant help the user .... they request 4 the "secret ?" ..... any FOOL will change ur secret ? once he has ur password ....
Hack's effect ! ! !
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