Hyderabad: The cyber crime police on Wednesday arrested a hacker who diverted an amount no less than Rs 52.9 lakhs through the data base server PayG, a payment gateway, from one of his associates.
An individual by the name Vannam Sriram Dinesh Kumar, a resident of Vijayawada was nabbed by the police on Wednesday. Police seized Rs 17.2 lakhs from his possession, another Rs 14 lakhs from his bank account, three laptops, 12 mobile phones, one tablet and 33 debit and credit cards along with bank documents.
A complaint was registered by Dinesh Kumar’s associate Chintu Naga Sai Hanamkonda in March stating that his account was hacked, and Rs 52.9 lakhs were diverted to another account.
According to the police, the accused created an account in payment gateway PayG by using disposable mail ID and phone number. He then used open source software tools for evaluating the vulnerabilities of the payment gateway PayG. 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 in which he identifies vulnerabilities in the software of payment gateways and uses these gaps to hack into their core servers and divert money.
