Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested a man who made 500 confirmed railway tickets in 30 seconds using 10 laptops by hacking www.irctc.co.in (the online railway reservation) site.

The accused Hamid Ashraf was arrested from Basti (Uttar Pradesh) in a joint operation by a team of CBI inspectors comprising of officers from Lucknow and Central Railway Vigilance. Hamid was quite an expert in making train tickets in 30 seconds.

That's It! IRCTC is hacked
That's It! IRCTC is hacked


You should know:

  • That it takes about a 1 minute time to make a confirm railway ticket at the reservation counter.
  • Hamid, on the other hand, printed 500 rail tickets simultaneously with the help of multiple laptops in half a minute.
  • He used to frequently change his location of work to not to get caught.
  • Hamid also developed a specialized hacking software "Back KS".
  • As per reports there are about 5000 agents of Hamid who are using this software and as of now they have robbed almost Rs 9 crore of railway.
Our readers would remember that we gave reasons why even hackers won't hack irctc quite a while back (and the article has become quite popular). But this is a real serious issue. This is something that directly affect us - the common men. We've all experienced how quickly the available railway seats gets filled up within a matter of seconds. The IRCTC seat availability runs down from 400 to nil in a blink of an eye, and we are forced to get a 'waiting list' ticket. Perhaps the hackers like Hamid Ashraf are the reason behind this.

From past few months the talks were going round that a man living near "Kaptanganj Wireless Circle" has a software that can hack into railway reservation system and is capable of providing confirm railway tickets on demand. Hearing this the CBI teams of Bangalore, Mumbai, Lucknow and Central Railway Vigilance teams got active. They were trying to catch the hacker from a long time but not had any success until they got a lead that he is in "Purani Basti" area.

Thus far, the local police has found 10 laptops, 80 SIM cards of various mobile networks, 16 passbooks of various banks, and other railway related documents.

It is interesting to note that the accused "Hamid Ashraf" made IRCTC hacking software while playing with computer in childhood. His father runs a building material shop in a nearby area.

As per Dainik Bhaskar news, Hamid Ashraf had many clients. He used to keep track of them through social media sites. He also had a facebook group of around 500 people and by inter-networking they together could make out where the demand for railway tickets is high and accordingly they could offer tickets and make money.

CBI has found deposits of around 50 lakh rupees in Hamid's bank accounts. This is too much of a money in bank account of a kid who is just studying in secondary (inter) school.

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post