ATS scanner on courses that can breed hackers

Computer institutes that offer courses in ethical hacking have come under the scanner of the state Anti-Terrorism Squad after a student taking such a course allegedly hacked into a series of computers to send a terror threat.

Computer institutes that offer courses in ethical hacking have come under the scanner of the state Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) after a student taking such a course allegedly hacked into a series of computers to send a terror threat.

It is the first time the state police has had to deal with multiple layers of hacking. Sagar Kashyap,20,allegedly spoofed the identity of one computer and used it to hack into another email account and send the threat. After his arrest on August 10,Kashyap,a second-year computer science student,informed the police he was also undergoing a course in ethical hacking.

The ATS plans to check what is taught in such institutes,with sources saying they would expand their watch. What this hacker had learnt was alarming: the ATS believe Kashyap sent the threat after remotely accessing a friends computer,but say forensic tests would not have been able to establish the three-level trespass.

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Kashyap exhausted his Internet time eight months ago. He allegedly hacked into the service providers network,copied the computer identity of a subscriber in Ghatkopar,and hacked into the third account.

It was reportedly Kashyap himself who asked the police if they would take expert help to solve the case. If it was not for his question,we would have found nothing suspicious, an officer said.

The police had picked Kashyap up on a gut feeling and a peer-to-peer match,but the email hadnt come from his computer. Later,the police scanned the ISPs 17,500 connections and zeroed in on 18 computers,including the friends.

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