In July, a couple of youngsters walked up to the office of Howrah Police Commissioner D P Singh to inform him that they had succeeded in tracing the person who had hacked into the website of the Howrah Police.
Upon checking, police realized that what they were saying was correct. Their site had been hacked using an IP address in Pakistan and a student from New Delhi might have also been involved in this. The group of youngsters, who are part of a group called S#4d0w $QUAD K1ll3r (Shadow Squad Killer), have since helped police crack several cyber crime cases.
The group is now planning to set up a cyber security company of their own and have approached police for assignments to help secure sensitive websites. “We also helped Kolkata Police crack a gangrape case by hacking into a Facebook account. Then we were given a certificate of appreciation. We are ethical hackers who check the security of websites by using our real IP addresses. Our intention is not to harm anybody but prevent hacking of sensitive websites by Pakistani hackers,” said team leader B A Khan, a BCA graduate.
The group also approached State Crime Records Bureau with details of what they can do for cyber security. Their big moment came recently when they went through the website of the West Bengal Traffic Police and detected several loose ends that would allow anybody with some knowledge in computers to hack into it and extract vital information. DC-DD (Howrah) Sumit Kumar said, “The youths have done an exceptional job. If they get an opportunity, they will be an asset for the country in cyber security.”
