Now, Twitter accounts, emails of senior scribes hacked

NEW DELHI: After liquor baron Vijay Mallya and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Twitter accounts of senior NDTV journalists Barkha Dutt and Ravish Kumar were also compromised on Saturday night. These breaches too were carried out by the hackers’ group ‘Legion’.

Legion appears to have accessed the Twitter accounts - @ravishndtv and @BDUTT - by first hacking into the email accounts used to set them up. The group posted expletive-laden messages from both accounts, which were restored soon after. They even shared the link to a “partial” database of Dutt’s emails measuring 1.2GB.

“Email, Twitter accounts of senior NDTV journalists have been hacked. Attempts are being made to use emails out of context. We are asking relevant authorities, including courts, to take strong action,” NDTV said. The hackers wrote from Kumar’s account, “We use Twitter as a means to reach the public. We don’t just hack twitter accounts. Go through the data and find out. Signed, Legion.” “If we go to jail or die, at least we did it with a bang. If any one of us get arrested, over 1TB of confidential data will be leaked.”


The group also clarified their political leanings. “We do not work for @BJP4India or @PMOIndia,” they tweeted from Kumar’s account. They claimed that they would release data on businessman Lalit Modi, who is currently fighting corruption charges. Responding to the hacks, Kumar said that these acts could be supported by political powers inconvenienced by journalism.

“My privacy was breached. Barkha’s privacy was breached too. I’m not just Ravish Kumar. I am a journalist... the powers that intimidate journalists, actually intimidate the public. If our privacy and independence is not your concern, remember, soon it will be your turn. A democracy which is intimidated, or which consents to intimidation will crumble one day. It is your duty to speak out against it. There is asurfeit of the non-courageous who hide in office backrooms to do these things,” wrote Kumar, who quit using Twitter about a year ago after facing threats and harassment on the network.