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Hit 'n' trial: Railways detect cyber crime

Date: September 26, 2004
Source: NDTV.com
By: Aradhana Sharma

When the Indian railways launched their website for online reservations, little did they know that it would fall prey to cyber crime.

In Lucknow, a student of computer applications used credit card numbers belonging to other people to buy train tickets. The transaction was possible because the credit card number did not have to be verified.

"The accused, Deepak Aggarwal told us how he used to generate credit card numbers numerically by trial and error. When they turned out to be valid he used them to buy tickets, which were actually delivered to him," said Kamal Saxena , SSP, Lucknow.

'Not theft'

After the payment was made electronically, the tickets were delivered by a courier company to a fake address provided by Deepak on the website.

The matter came to light when some people complained to the railways that their credit cards were being used to buy train tickets. The accused, who has now been arrested says his intention was not to steal, but just to see if the transaction was possible.

"I did not intend to steal the tickets. I also did not know if the transaction had actually been made and was valid. To confirm whether the transactions had actually been made, I visited three cyber cafes," said Deepak Aggarwal, accused.

Since the crime was detected in time, many people on whose credit cards the tickets were bought, did not loose money. But this cyber crime has once again brought the focus on the need to secure transactions taking place over the internet.


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2005-09-02 09:06:13 - Good blog Misho
2005-03-09 06:41:56 - This is true, as there is no secured... PK Jain
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