Techie Held For Hacking Air India Frequent Flyers Accounts

July 18, 2016

New Delhi, Jul 18: A 23-year-old techie has been arrested for hacking Air India's Frequent Flyer member accounts and using them to book tickets sold to several travel agents, Delhi Police said on Sunday.

airindiaThe accused, Anitesh Giri Goswami, a BCA graduate from Pune, was arrested from Jaipur on Friday.

According to police, a complaint was received in the Cyber Crime Cell of the Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) alleging some persons were selling Air India tickets by redeeming of miles of genuine Flying Returns Members after hacking the Frequent Flyer members account.

In a statement, the EOW said it was found that the hub of the scam was in Rajasthan's Jodhpur and Anitesh was its mastermind. On basis of electronic surveillance and information of a local informer, a raid was conducted at an apartment in Jaipur and Anitesh was nabbed.

A laptop, several mobile phones and other relevant documents were also recovered from his possession.

Police further claimed that Anitesh was an IT expert, who had earlier worked with Kingfisher Airlines and Air India and was well versed with the online ticket-booking system and functioning of Air India's intranet and internet-based systems.

Explaining the modus operandi, police said that Anitesh first understood functioning of the ticketing system as well as the points/miles system of the airlines and then hacked into the Loyalty Plus programme website of Air India.

After gaining access, he administrator user rights, which he used to upgrade several other user IDs with the same rights, police said.

Using these IDs, he verified hundreds of dormant accounts of Frequent Flyer members by uploading fraudulently prepared KYC (know your customer) documents, and used these membership accounts and the miles or points accumulated in these accounts for booking airline tickets. These were sold to various travel or ticketing agents based in Pune, Delhi, Jaipur and Mumbai.

He gained access to the internal functioning of Air India website while working at the Jodhpur airport, and left his Air India job to start exploiting loopholes in the Frequent Flyer Programme's functioning.

Comments

Suresh
 - 
Monday, 18 Jul 2016

May be brother of arnab!!

Ahmed Ali K
 - 
Monday, 18 Jul 2016

Both Go-Swamis are jokers and talk of the town now a days

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July 17,2020

Mangaluru, Jul 17: Dakshina Kannada district Youth Congress president Mithun Rai has tested positive for the covid-19. 

Mr Rai took to social media to announce it: “I have been tested COVID19 positive & I am under Quarantine at Bangalore. With all your love and blessings, I will recover and be back soon at your service.

“My request to all those who were in close proximity with me in the last few days, kindly get yourselves checked for COVID,” he stated in a social media post on Friday.

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News Network
March 3,2020

Bengaluru, Mar 3: Chief minister BS Yediyurappa on Monday introduced the Karnataka Municipalities and Certain Other Law (Amendment) Bill, 2020, in the assembly to give voters the opportunity to reject candidates in civic polls.

The bill, if passed, will enable election officials to offer the NOTA option in the elections to municipal corporations on the lines of assembly and Lok Sabha polls.

An amendment bill which seeks to enable the government to set up a separate university for the districts of Raichur and Yadgir was also tabled. The government said the workload of Gulbarga University necessitated creation of a separate university for the two districts, a move that will also help reduce regional imbalance in Kalyana Karnataka region.

Another amendment bill seeks to allow industrial units, which have failed to start operations on allotted land after seven years, to sell off the parcels to another unit. Bills which empower authorised agencies to regulate turf clubs and horse racing and regulate salary and pension of teachers in higher education institutions were also introduced in the assembly on Monday.

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July 26,2020

Bengaluru, Jul 26: A year-long probe by Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd (CDEL) has found that its late founder V G Siddhartha routed Rs 2,693 crore out of the company to Mysore Amalgamated Coffee Estates Ltd (MACEL), another privately-owned entity of him.

The MACEL owes Rs 3,535 crore to subsidiaries of Coffee Day Enterprises as of July 31, 2019 of which only Rs 842 crore was accounted.

"Therefore, a sum of Rs 2,693 crore is the incremental outstanding that needs to be addressed," said the report of an investigation headed by Ashok Kumar Malhotra, a retired DIG of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and assisted by law firm Agastya Agastya Legal.

Siddhartha was found dead in early August 2019, and many suspected that he had committed suicide.

Steps are being taken by subsidiaries of CDEL for recovery of dues from MACEL, the company said.

"The board authorised the Chairman to appoint an ex-judge of the Supreme Court or the High Court, or any other person of eminence, to suggest and oversee actions for recovery of the dues from MACEL and to help on any other associated matters," it said in regulatory filings at stock exchanges late on Friday.

The probe further gives clean chits to the Income Tax Department and the private equity firms who Siddhartha in his parting letter had alleged of harassment.

"We have not been provided with any documentary evidence to draw an inference that there may have been any advertent or inadvertent harassment from the Income Tax Department," said the probe report.

The probe also highlighted severe liquidity crunch at CDEL in the build-up to Siddhartha's death.

A committee supported by senior professionals was formed to protect the interest of all stakeholders. CDEL said the debt levels which were about Rs 7,200 crore on March 31, 2019 have been brought down significantly by Rs 4,000 crore. The present debt of the group is around Rs 3,200 crore.

"The disinvestment process in the group continues and we are confident to have effective solution to all stakeholders," it said.

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