Anil Ambani probe reveals more breaches; Tax a/c of MSD, Sachin, SRK hacked

MUMBAI: Mumbai Police, which is probing the alleged hacking by a CA student into Anil Ambani's e-filing of Income-Tax returns account, has stumbled upon another CA student who not only accessed the top industrialist's account, but also of popular cricketers and film stars including Sachin Tendulkar, M S Dhoni, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan.

According to police, during the probe of the case of a Hyderabad-based young CA student hacking into the IT account of Ambani, it has emerged that the business tycoon's account was also fraudulently accessed from Noida.

"We questioned the girl if she had also accessed the account from Noida for which she replied in negative. She also denied she knew anybody from Noida," said Mukund Pawar, Senior Inspector at Cyber Cell of the crime branch, today.

The 21-year-old woman, who has been doing her chartered accountancy articleship at Manoj Daga & Company in Hyderabad, was booked under relevant sections of Information Technology Act on September 7, police said.

The probe took them to Vishal Kaushal Company, an accountancy firm in Noida, where CA student Sanchit Katiyal (22) was found to have hacked into Ambani's account, he said.

Sanchit, who is doing his articleship, was accordingly booked by the Cyber Crime Cell on September 16 and his computer and hard disks were seized, Pawar added.

Like the Hyderabad based girl, Sanchit had also for curiosity had hacked into Ambani's account on June 26.

The accused first accessed the accounts of Shah Rukh and Salman on June 22, Dhoni's account on June 24 and then broke into Ambani's account.

He again accessed Dhoni's account on June 28, and Sachin's account on July 4.

The modus operandi in both the cases was similar. The two had sent e-mails to the IT department seeking change in the password of the person whose account they planned to hack into. The IT department then did the needful, a procedure that highlights the fragility of the department, says Crime branch.

Using the new password, the duo accessed the accounts of the prominent personalities.

Both the accused are not yet arrested, said another police officer adding that, "the offences were bailable. We have plans to file the chargesheets at the earliest. And at the time of filing the chargesheets, we would place the duo under arrest."