A 19-year old teenager named Himalaya Mohanty from Odisha was arrested by the Cyberabad police on Saturday for hacking a toll-free number of a Hyderabad-based company. He hacked into the EPABX system of the Lloyd Electrical and Engineering Ltd and caused a loss of Rs. 60 lakh.
Himalaya Mohanty is a native of Shibapura village in Balasore district and has done his studies from ITI. He learned computer hacking from a website and in spite of the fact that he is not well versed in English, he somehow managed to enroll himself in many online forums and by using translation software, he was able to communicate.
The 19-year old hacker used his old mobile to hack into the EPABX system of the Hyderabad-based company. After that, he got the code of the toll-free number of the customer care center of the firm and later on put the code online by creating his website. This hack also allowed him to make free calls through the toll-free number.
The Hyderabad police issued a press release where it stated,
Thousands of net surfers made free calls by using the code and the company received a hefty bill of about Rs 60 lakh. Whenever people contacted him using their phone, he used to hack their phones by sending a Trojan (virus) and used to track their movement. But all of this was done without gaining financial benefits.
Due to this, the company which earlier used to receive a monthly phone bill of Rs. 1 lakh reportedly got a monthly bill of Rs. 60 lakh in a month. After this, a complaint was filed in the Cyber Crime and police conducted forensic tests, which led them to the teenager IP address and his arrest.
Other than hacking into the Hyderabad Lloyd Electrical and Engineering Ltd, Mohanty is also able to hack Wi-Fi routers, email, Facebook accounts and smartphones.
