Clueless, cops to register FIR in Bathinda university question bank hacking case

SWITZERLAND-BASED PROTON MAIL HAS NOT RESPONDED TO THE POLICE REQUEST TO SHARE INFO ON IDENTITY OF HACKER

BATHINDA: A month after the police probe into the hacking of the question bank of Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, failed to make headway, district police authorities will register a first information report (FIR) to expand the scope of the cyber investigation.

Deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Aaswant Dhaliwal, the investigating officer, said Switzerland-based Proton Mail has not responded to the police request to share information about the email user identity of the unidentified hacker. He said preliminary police probe has not found any clue to those behind compromising the question paper bank of the university.

“After registering the FIR,

Proton Mail service provider will be asked to give the internet protocol (IP) address from where the email by the unidentified hacker was sent to the university authorities, informing them about the hacking. Once a criminal case is registered, we can question suspects and summon cyber data from agencies,” Dhaliwal said.

In view of the Covid-19 outbreak, the university conducted examinations online where only the schedule was released and students had the flexibility to choose dates to take their tests while staying home.

On July 8, the university found that its online examination system had been accessed by hackers.

A hacker sent an email from Proton Mail, an end-to-end encrypted and sophisticated cyber platform, to vice-chancellor RK Kohli and some faculty members, where a link was given. Clicking on it gave access to all questions.

The server was sealed by university authorities for the police probe.

“The university appointed a three-member cyber expert team, including two external members. The team is expected to share the dump of data secured from the central server to check who all accessed the question bank,” the DSP said.

Earlier, Kohli had raised doubts about a group of 10 students from a particular state, who scored exceptionally well in the semester exams conducted on the first three days.

“It was found that these students had average marks in the previous semesters but in this session of online exams, they scored more than 92%, much higher than other students. We have shared these details with the police for cyber scrutiny of the matter,” Kohli said.

Registrar KP Mundra, who is also a complainant in the case, did not respond to phone calls on Saturday.

Meanwhile, university sources said the examination for second year students that restarted from July 24 are going on smoothly.