Cyberabad police arrests 19-year-old Odisha hacker

Hyderabad: A 19-year-old Odisha-based ITI student, who hacked the code of Lloyd Electricals and Engineering’s EPABX and caused an expense of Rs 60 lakh to the company was arrested by Cyderabad Police on Saturday.

Police said Himalaya Mohanty, who did not know even basic English, hacked the account using proxy servers in South Amercia, and Macedonia.

Cybercrime inspector Md Riyazuddin said Himalaya Mohanty was pursuing ITI (electrical) and had never travelled out of Balasore district. He used his old smart phone and created a website and posted hacking techniques. Though he did not know English, he used the translator software to translate from Odia. “He admitted that he registered himself in many online forums and learnt hacking techniques. He is capable of hacking email, wi-fi routers, Facebook accounts and mobile phones also,” Mr Riyazuddin said.

He even posted on forums that he can help interested people learn hacking techniques. If anyone expressed an interest to learn, he would send them a trojan tool and ask them to install it on their device. “Once that tool is installed in the device, that device would be hacked and will be under Mohanty’s control. In this way, around 100 people fell prey to his online hacking techniques,” Mr Riyazuddin said, adding that Mohanty did not gain any money but did it for fun.

The issue came to light when Lloyd Electricals and Engineering Ltd, lodged a complaint with Cybercrime police, alleging that the code of their toll free mobile number’s EPABX was hacked and numerous calls were made through the numbers, due to which they got a bill of Rs 60 lakh against a regular bill of Rs 1 lakh per month.

Using a special software, the police cracked the proxy server’s location and traced the user’s location to Odisha. Mohanty was arrested and remanded to judicial custody remand.