My name is Razdan and I'm not a professor.....not anymore



Nidhi Razdan - investigative journalist, media personality, TV anchor and Harvard Professor, read the veteran NDTV anchor’s bio in June 2020, when she announced her decision to quit her job at NDTV, one she held for the better part of 21 years, to join as an associate professor at Harvard University. But her world came crashing down when she realised it was all a sophisticated and extremely well-planned phishing attack aimed " to access her sensitive information.  "


A day after announcing on Twitter that she had been scammed, Razdan cleared the air in a detailed blog published on NDTV. She claimed that she had been a victim of a serious, sophisticated and elaborate scheme aimed at “Accessing my bank account, personal data, my emails, my medical records, passport and my devices like my computer and phone”. She also says that the attack comprised not only the exchange of phone calls and emails, but elaborate interviews, forged appointment letters, and “official” invitations. 



Razdan says the numerous delays and administrative failures such as non-payment of dues, which she ignored believing them to be due to the chaos caused by the pandemic, finally led to her smelling a rat. It was only following lengthy correspondence with the concerned authorities at Harvard did she realise that she had been scammed. They had never approached her for a teaching position.


Razdan also said that she and her lawyers had taken up this issue with the police and with authorities at Harvard to prevent any further attacks of this nature. She reveals that no serious damage was done and asks everyone to “never trust anything online.” 



Why Her?


After Nidhi admitted to being duped, many wondered why she had been specifically targeted. Was it just an elaborate prank or was it a crime syndicate that was targeting specific people? Someone on Twitter pointed out that it’s more chilling if the prolonged attack on her wasn’t so much about money. Razdan represents a certain kind of journalist that is unafraid of posing tough questions. Was she targeted for her journalism? More evidence to support this theory comes forward when we see another journalist, Zainab Sikander Siddiqui’s Twitter thread on how she believes even she came close to falling prey to a seemingly similar scam.


Siddiqui, who is a journalist for The Print, also falls under the category of journalists who aren’t afraid to speak their mind and have been known to be critical of the incumbent government at times. All this leads to believe that there may be many more high profile attacks that are uncovered shortly.



The Reaction- Sympathy, Shock, Trolling 


Her being a veteran journalist and anchor, the news went off like a bomb on social media. But once the initial frenzy wore down, it led to a plethora of follow up questions. Why did she not realise sooner that she had been scammed? 

Why did she use the ‘Associate Professor’ designation for several months on TV shows if she hadn’t yet started work at Harvard? And so on. She did go on to clear quite a few doubts in her blog posted 24 hours later. But it also raised a question on ethics.  Razdan passed herself off as an Associate Professor at Harvard University for the months before she was supposed to “join” the university, as per the fake offer. She also gave talks and attended events under this tag. Even if the letter was genuine, it was a highly unethical practice to call oneself an Associate Professor, before one has taken up the role.

There was also some confusion regarding the actual position Razdan was going to assume at Harvard. In her blog for NDTV, Razdan wrote “Contrary to what many are tweeting, Harvard has a school called the Extension School offering a Journalism Degree Programme. The actual programme is called the Master of Liberal Arts, Journalism degree. The Extension School lists 500 faculty of whom 17 are categorised as journalism faculty. A number of these people are working journalists. I believed I fit this profile”. But just a few hours later, Joshua Benton, the former director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard, clarified thru his tweet that the university does not, in fact, have a school of journalism. There are no departments of journalism either, nor are there any professors of journalism. 




Scrolling through social media in the aftermath of the news breaking out, you realize that one tends to react as per their political inclinations, values and individual lenses.

The initial reaction could be summarized as:


  • The IT cell began their merciless trolling as usual

  • Friends and acquaintances were sympathetic and supportive

  • Even the general public was probing in their judgements


We tend to believe that we are rational beings who are capable of making fair and unbiased judgements based on facts but as studies have shown, we will always be guided by emotions while we believe we are being rational. So unless some mind-altering virus replaces COVID-19, we shall continue to view current affairs through our lenses and end up making judgements well before all the facts are clear.


Cyber Crime


Apart from all the hullabaloo around this whole saga is the meteoric rise of cybercrime in today's day and age. This incident has triggered a lot of buzz around what exactly a phishing attack is and how to stay safe from it.

Phishing is a cybercrime in which a target or targets are contacted by email, telephone or text message by someone posing as a legitimate institution to lure individuals into providing sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details, and passwords says Phishing.org, a cyber security awareness website.

Is this new? No, not exactly. Phishing is actually one of the oldest types of cyber attacks dating back to the early ‘90’s and still remains one the most widespread and pernicious attacks. 


According to WomensWeb, “Since the outbreak of the pandemic and the COVID19 induced lockdown, along with everything else, the modus operandi of crimes has also witnessed a paradigm shift. Between March and April of 2020, India has witnessed a rise of cybercrimes by as much as 86%. These crimes range from online sexual harassment to phishing, hacking corporations and hospitals, and ransom attacks.

Not very surprisingly, women are disproportionately targeted by these crimes. Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, joint director Indraveni K shared that between 25th of March, 2020 and 25th of April, 2020, there were 412 genuine complaints of cybercrimes against women. As many as 396 of which were very serious in nature. These have very real consequences, which Nidhi Razdan is a victim of. These crimes can have psychological, economic, sexual and physical effects on the women being targeted.”


Though the general motivation behind a phishing attack remains to steal personal information for monetary gain, it isn't clear what information of Razdan’s was compromised. She does say in her blog that she alerted authorities before any meaningful damage was done.


So how do you prevent such attacks? Here are a few tips -


  • Check the sender’s address - if you have received an email or a message that looks fishy, look at the email address or the phone number of the sender.

  • Check the link - if the email or message redirects you to an external webpage, it could contain misspelled words instead of the actual spellings.

  • Don't open attachments - avoid opening or downloading attachments that look suspicious. There is a high chance that they contain malware.

  • Get antivirus software - keep your system protected by having antivirus software and update it regularly. It can go a long way in protecting your personal data and credentials.

  • Download apps only from Google and Apple's app store - don't download applications from third-party websites or try to side load apps on your devices from uncertain sources. 

Lessons 


It is a big lesson for us that the virtual world is a very dangerous place and continues to find a way to exploit people who are not careful online. It shows that in the current world, crime is not taking place only in dark alleyways of a bad neighbourhood, but also in well- lit bedrooms of the privileged, involving even the names of institutions of international repute. 

The major learning from this would be that if senior journalists and Chief editors of large TV networks are unable to differentiate between truth and falsehoods, to the extent that they can throw away their careers and reputations built over several years, do they really have the right to influence the opinions of the masses? Is it right to hand over such power to the fourth pillar of democracy? Unfortunately for us, the disastrous effects of the aforementioned power have been on display in our country for years now.


This is an incident that will continue to question how we deal with the extreme technological advancement and the baggage it carries with it.


 







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