Sachin, Dhoni, Shah Rukh and Salman's I-T accounts too hacked by CA student

Mumbai Police, which is probing the alleged hacking into Anil Ambani’s e-filing of Income-Tax (I-T) returns account by a Hyderabad-based chartered accountant (CA) student, found that another CA student has hacked into I-T accounts of Sachin Tendulkar, Mahindra Singh Dhoni, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan.

According to Police, during the probe of the case of a Hyderabad-based young CA student hacking into the IT account of Ambani, it has emerged that the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) chairman’s account was also fraudulently accessed from Noida.

Mukund Pawar, senior inspector at Cyber Cell of the crime branch, told reporters, “We questioned the girl if she had also accessed the account from Noida for which she replied in negative. She also denied she knew anybody from Noida”.

The 21-year-old woman, who has been doing her chartered accountancy articleship at Manoj Daga & Company in Hyderabad, was booked under relevant sections of Information Technology Act on 7th September.

The probe took them to Vishal Kaushal Company, an accountancy firm in Noida, where CA student Sanchit Katiyal (22) was found to have hacked into Ambani’s account as well, he said.

Sanchit, who is doing his articleship, was accordingly booked by the Cyber Crime Cell on 16th September and his computer and hard disks were seized, Pawar added.

Like the Hyderabad based girl, Sanchit had also for curiosity had hacked into Ambani’s account on 26th June. He first accessed the accounts of Shah Rukh and Salman on 22nd June, Dhoni’s account on 24th June and then broke into Ambani’s account.

He again accessed Dhoni’s account on 28th June and Sachin’s account on 4th July.

According to police, a chartered accountant firm in Mumbai, which files 54-year-old Ambani's individual tax details, was intimated through an email from IT department on June 26 that as per request, the industrialist's e-return account had been changed. Again on July 12, the firm received another email stating that second time the password had been changed.

As suspicion grew, the ADAG group representative complained to Himanshu Roy, joint police commissioner (crime) at Mumbai, who directed cyber cell inspector Pawar to probe the case.

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ICAI to hold inquiry after CA student hacks Anil Ambani's Income-Tax details

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India on Saturday said it will conduct inquiry in the matter of the 21-year-old CA student allegedly hacking the Income Tax account of industrialist Anil Ambani.

 

Subodh Kumar Agrawal, president of ICAI, said the Hyderabad-based girl, who is pursuing her CA article-ship, would get a notice in this regard.

 

"The issue has been forwarded to the respective department," he said.

 

When asked if there would be any action against Manoj Daga & Company, the CA firm where the girl was doing her article-ship, Agrawal said it was too early to say anything.

 

"First we will inquire with the student and later if anything is found then we will go ahead for others," he said.

 

The girl allegedly hacked Ambani's e-filing of Income Tax returns, to find out details of his income and the tax he paid, according to Mumbai police.

 

A case was registered against her under the Information Technology Act on September 7.

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CA Student Hacks Ambani's IT Account

The 21-year-old woman from Hyderabad tells police she merely wanted to know how much the billionaire tycoon pays in taxes.

Driven by curiosity, a 21-yearold woman from Hyderabad hacked into Anil Ambani's efiling of Income-Tax returns account. She not only accessed details such as the amount of tax he paid, returns from previous years, and his PAN card number, but also changed the password of his e-account on the I-T website.

The woman, who was booked by the Mumbai Police six days ago, is doing her chartered accountancy articleship at Manoj Daga & Company, a leading tax consultancy firm based in Hyderabad's Chikkadpally area. She is the niece of the firm's owner, Manoj Daga, and the daughter of a senior banker.

She told police that the only motive behind accessing Ambani's tax details was to find out the amount a billionaire business tycoon such as Anil Ambani pays in taxes, and insisted during her questioning that she meant no harm. She has been booked under various sections of the Information-Technology Act.

A Mumbai Police officer who questioned the woman said, "It is surprising that she hasn't realised the seriousness of her offence. Being a chartered accountancy student, she should have been aware of the implications of hacking into a VVIP tax account. She may be arrested once we find out what other information she accessed."

This is not the first time Anil Ambani, 54, the chairman of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) has been targeted by hackers. One of the richest men in Asia, Ambani received an email in May, 2011 that appeared to have been sent by a business journalist. The hacking attempt was revealed when ADAG contacted the journalist, who said no such email had been sent, following which the Mumbai Police launched an investigation.
How the crime was detected

The police sources said that on June 26, chartered accountant Nilesh Doshi, who looks after Anil Ambani's individual tax details, received an email from the I-T Department confirming the password of the tycoon's e-return account had been changed as requested.
Doshi, who is based at Reliance Centre in Ballard Estate, replied that no such request had been forwarded. Doshi and the rest of Ambani's staff panicked when they received another communication from the I-T Department on July 12, informing that the password had been changed again.

Suspecting corporate hacking and espionage, ADAG approached Crime Branch, following which Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Himanshu Roy directed the Crime Branch Cyber Crime Cell to investigate.

It took the cops around 25 days to trace the area from where the account was hacked into, and a case was registered under the Information-Technology Act on September 7. "Investigation led us to the Chikkadpally firm of Manoj Daga, and a team headed by Inspector Mukund Pawar confiscated the server on which folders containing details of Ambani's I-T returns were stored. Daga wasn't aware of the crime, as he had been out of Hyderabad for more than a month after his father's death," a Crime Branch source said.

The cops found that besides Daga, only his niece, who is doing her articleship at the firm, had access to the server. "We confronted her with evidence, following which she confessed to accessing Anil Ambani's tax returns details," a Crime Branch officer said. Roy said, "We have seized a large amount of electronic evidence, and will take a call on further action after thoroughly evaluating the evidence"

The hacking

The woman accessed Anil Ambani's PAN card number from the Income-Tax Department website by providing basic details such as his birth date, mother's name, etc. She then logged on the Income-Tax Department's portal for filing e-returns (incometaxindiaefiling. gov.in) using an email account by the name khurana.jeet.2001@gmail.com, and used Anil Ambani's PAN card number to reset the password of his account.

Once the I-T Department sent the password to the gmail account listed by the accused, she accessed the details of his tax returns. "It is surprising that the I-T Department didn't bother to verify the authenticity of the password change request, and sent the new password to an unknown email ID. The accused was nailed after she created folders containing details of Ambani's I-T returns using the firm's server," a Crime Branch officer said.

 

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