Police seek info from 5 countries on Twitter hacking

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police have sought information from five countries to help ib tracing the group which hacked into the Twitter accounts of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and his party.

The hacking group ‘Legion’, which claimed responsibility for the act, is still a mystery for internet service providers. The Delhi Police are probing the case after Congress members lodged a complaint.

Accounts of two senior journalists — Barkha Dutt and Ravish Kumar — were also hacked, and their complaint was received by the Delhi Police Cyber Cell on Monday.

During the preliminary inquiry, the police could trace IP addresses from five countries — Sweden, Romania, the United States, Canada and Thailand — in the hacking job.

Investigators want to know if the hackers used the servers in these countries from somewhere else or they were physically present there while breaking into the microblogging sites of Gandhi and his party.

“We have got the IP logs from Twitter. The details of IP logs were sent to the internet service providers in five countries after a thorough examination. We are yet to get the details of hacker’s account and address,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Cell) Anyesh Roy said.

Asked if the act was done by Twitter hackers Legion, Roy said “The group is itself taking responsibility for hacking these microblogging sites, but we don’t as yet have any information about the real hackers. The case is under investigation”.

Roy said the police were also taking help of Twitter officials in Bengaluru to identify those responsible.

The Cyber Cell is probing the case after two First Information Reports under Section 66 (c) of the Information Technology Act were filed.

Randeep Singh Surjewala, a senior Congress leader, filed a complaint with the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police on December 1 after the two accounts were hacked and a string of abusive messages posted on their Twitter handles.