PATNA: Wanna avail of telephone facility without paying the bills? Get a tip or two from Ankit Fadia. Hack into the BSNL website and remove your name from the list of consumers whose bills are not paid.
'Doc Attack', 'ARP Poisoning', 'Tab Napping' and 'SQL injection' were some of the hacking tricks that the renowned ethical hacker wowed the youngsters with at a brainstorming session held during the IIT-Patna's techno-cultural fest, 'Anwesha', on Saturday.
To the surprise and shock of his audience, the 24-year-old hacked into the BSNL website within no time. He also hacked into the website of DTDC, a courier service firm, with equal ease.
And did the 'ethical' hacker have permission to test either web site? If he did, does telling the audience they can remove their name from the list of billing constitute ethical behavior?
No less interesting was the demonstration of 'road sign hacking' with Fadia changing the signs displayed on roads by using a simple password. After being hacked, two such signs in the USA read 'Zombies Ahead' and 'You May Never Reach'! He even shared the trick of hacking into an ATM, but warned all never to attempt it.
The road sign hacking he 'demonstrated' was nothing more than displaying pictures from an incident that happened some two or more years ago. A google search will show it is a common image. Searching further finds an article from Jan 23, 2009 showing the hack, and another Jan 29, 2009 with more details.
The ATM 'trick' comes over six months after Barnaby Jack demonstrated 'ATM Jackpotting' at BlackHat in Las Vegas. This trick was not developed by Fadia.
"Hackers can do anything. If you are not fully protected, your CPU could be even remotely burnt," he said as he rattled off a few tips on how to secure one's email accounts from being hacked.
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