CHANDIGARH:
Indian Air Force (IAF) officials were stunned on Thursday when they realised that fraudsters had hacked into their online exam to recruit non-commissioned officers in
Rohtak. The fraudsters had gained remote access to computers used in the exam by setting up a parallel network. They were giving answers to the questions with the help of experts even as the candidates were sitting idle in front of their computers.
IAF registered an FIR at Rohtak city police station later in the evening. According to initial police investigations, 175 candidates were taking the exam and at least five computers had been hacked and were being operated remotely. The exam was being conducted by
Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), which had outsourced it to another agency.
The hacking was detected when officials of IAF’s vigilance wing visited the centre and noticed that some of the candidates were sitting idle even as the questions on their computers were being answered automatically. The candidates were not even touching the keyboards.
The officers inspected the building and found that a CAT 6 fibre cable had been extended from the exam centre to the first floor of an adjacent private hospital. Inside the hospital, they found an extensive set-up with five men manning laptops which were connected to the CAT 6 cable. These five men were accessing the questions and sending them to an expert, who was sending back the answers.
Two people have been arrested so far, including the invigilator of the outsourced agency.
Although the number of beneficiaries is not yet clear, the arrested men have told the police that they had charged between Rs 3.5 lakh and Rs 6 lakh from each candidate. They operated in a
close-knit circle and helped only those people that they trusted. Aditya, who put in place the entire hacking network, is on the run. He used to run a computer firm in Gurgaon.
