City Police Ethical hacking team nabs a Cyber Crook

 The Cyber Crime Police of Hyderabad City nabbed a hacker by name Vannam Sriram Dinesh Kumar of Vijayawada, who hacked an amount of Rs.52.9 lakhs from the data base server of PayG payment gate way and his associate Chintu Nagasai Hanamakonda chartered accountant. 

Facts of the case:

The facts of the case are that the complainant who is an employee of Xsilica software Solutions Pvt Ltd lodged a complaint on 17-03-2022 stating that their account was hacked on 15/16-03-2022 and an amount of Rs.52.9 lakhs was diverted to other accounts.

Basing on the above content registered a case Cr No 458/2022 U/S 66 (C), (D) ITA Act & 419, 420 IPC was registered in Cyber Crime P.S, CCS, DD, Hyderabad.

The accused was apprehended at Vijayawada in the early hours today and an amount of Rs.17.2 lakhs was recovered from his possession and another Rs.14 lakhs was found in his bank account with HDFC bank. Three Laptops and 12 mobile phones, one tab, 33 credit/debit card along with some bank documents were also recovered from the accused.

   MO of the accused:

The accused Vannam Sriram Dinesh Kumar created USER ID in payment gateway PayG by using disposable mail id and phone number. Then the accused used open source software tools for evaluating the vulnerabilities of the payment gateway PayG. Later the accused obtained the user ID of Super Admin of the payment gateway PayG. Using the software he gained access into the main data base server utilizing the vulnerabilities existing in the payment gateway software. 

After entering into the data server, he transferred a total amount of Rs.52.9 lakhs from the nodal account of PayG to three virtual bank accounts existing with Yes Bank, Equitas Bank and ICICI bank. The total amount was finally transferred to www.bitcoiva.com. where he purchased bitcoins from www.bitcoiva.com.  He later transferred these bitcoins into another crypto account in www.remitano.com., from there he sold the bitcoins and encashed the amount. The accused developed a method, wherein, he identifies vulnerabilities in the software of payment gateways and uses these gaps to hack into their core servers and divert money.    

  Investigation Challenges 

1) Suspect person used VPN IPs to mask his identity.

2) Suspect collected Adhaar cards from innocent people and from internet, used them as KYC documents and thereby created virtual bank accounts to mask identity.

3) Used fake mobile numbers.