Hackers Attack ADAG Chief Anil Ambani's Work Email Account

[Arun 795]

18 June, 2011, 12:19 AM IST

Economic Times

Unidentified hackers last month attempted what seems to have been a cleverly disguised phishing attack on billionaire Anil Ambani , who may have suffered a resultant breach of security on his computer.

The attack, now the subject of an investigation by the Cyber Crime Cell of the Mumbai Police, happened on May 8, when the 52-year-old chairman of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group and the fourth-richest Indian received an email that appeared to have been sent by an India-based reporter of global financial newswire service Bloomberg.

The hacking attempt was revealed when the group's corporate communications department got in touch with the reporter and it became clear that no such email had been sent.

"We have received a complaint from ADAG. We have been investigating the matter and we expect to have some leads in the matter in a week or so," Deven Bharti, additional commissioner of Mumbai Police, said.

According to a person familiar with the investigation, who asked not to be named, the email carried a malicious code, commonly referred to as a virus, that might have compromised the data security on Ambani's email .

Bharti said while that appears to have been the case prima facie, he could not comment on the extent of the breach till the technical investigation was completed. The hackers seem to have used a commonly used technique called email spoofing. The email appeared to have come from an ID on the Bloomberg.tv domain. The wire service uses the Bloomberg-.net domain for its email service.

The Bloomberg.tv domain redirects to Bloomberg.com and appears to be a domain owned by that company. Experts say it is easy to 'spoof', or replicate, a domain and make an email look like it has come from a person known to the recipient, and is commonly used by hackers looking to steal information from a computer, in what are called "phishing" attacks.

"The email headers can be easily replaced by a hacker and an email system does not authenticate where it has originated from," said Sanjay Katkar, chief technology officer at Quickheal Technologies, a Pune-based maker of anti-virus solutions.

In this case, hackers cleverly spoofed the email ID of a person known to Ambani, prompting him to instinctively trust the sender. The email carried an attachment, and Ambani received it on his work ID. It is not clear if he opened the attachment. Some kind of viruses are activated when the recipient clicks on an email attachment.

A Bloomberg spokesperson said the company would file a separate complaint to determine the source of the rogue email. "We were first alerted by Reliance officials of an email from someone impersonating one of our reporters and determined it was clearly fraudulent and not from our staff. Reliance acknowledged that they understood the email was not a legitimate Bloomberg email address.

We are cooperating with the investigation fully and plan to file our own complaint in order to assist in determining the source of the fraudulent email," Bloomberg spokesperson TY Trippet wrote in an email response. While it is simple for a hacker to spoof the identity of the sender, the malicious code delivered by such a seemingly friendly email can be devastating, Katkar said.

"There is no limit to what such a virus can do. It cannot only steal your data, but can even control your computer remotely, without your knowledge," he said.

A spokesperson for ADAG confirmed the police investigation, but declined further comment. A senior company official, who asked not to be named, said no data has been compromised.

[digitalnirvana 646]

They must be having an E-Mail antivirus scanner on PCs, even normal businesses have them installed over the network. Curious how the E-Mail got through if it had a virus attachment. Might be ADA checked on mobile phone or similar.

[csmart 472]

arre yaar, ADA hai... anti-virus expire ho gaya.. tried to bargain hard with AV company so renewal took time..

[parin 857]

Lol

[vishalmcp 8]

anything can happen with ADA.... :winko:

[mywebid 21]

Feel sorry for Anil sometimes....