The probe into the series of hoax mails sent to city schools and other places since February has been a challenge for the officers of the Cyber Crime Wing of the city police as the perpetrators purportedly used the “dark web” to conceal the identity.
At least two dozen cases were booked by the local stations and the Cyber Crime Wing of the Greater Chennai City Police following repeated hoax threats through mails since last February.
Some private schools within the Greater Chennai City Police jurisdiction received threat mails on February 8 and on a few other occasions, stating that bombs were placed on the premises. The Bomb Disposal Detection Squad accompanied by sniffer dogs were pressed into service in accordance with Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), at the schools. Searches unearthed no bombs, and the email threats were found to be a hoax, on each occasion. Such mails were sent to threaten the State secretariat and other important places in the past couple of months.
The GCP has also approached various agencies seeking details pertaining to the origin of the mails and efforts are being taken to block certain mail service providers and virtual private network (VPN) providers, which aided the perpetrators in going anonymous.
A senior police officer said, “All efforts have been taken to detect the cases at the earliest, and it is a challenge for us to crack down on the miscreants as they uses anonymous browsers via the dark web. We are also getting details from Microsoft, which has two domains – Outlook and Hotmail. Using this, the hoax mailer(s) is sending the mails in different names. They (Microsoft) are providing details, but with the information given by Microsoft to us, we are not able to proceed further, and have hit a roadblock.”
“As per latest information, the perpetrators are using the Tor browser. Since Tor can mask a user’s real identity online, including their location, they are often used for sending hoax mails. Detecting Tor IP addresses is a challenge. We are getting whatever details either from Microsoft or Interpol, and we are also initiating requests under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT). Since these browsers are foreign products, they also follow all the laws of their country and are not ready to share details with us at times,“ said another officer.
“Such hoax mails to schools sent panic waves across the country, including Bengaluru, Delhi, Gujarat, and other places. We have spoken to all the other counterparts in the neighbouring States and other cities. Nobody was able to go deeper into the browser on the dark web. That is the drawback,” the officers said.
Such cases of hoax mails spread to other cities such as Tiruchi and Erode as well.
Last Tuesday, airport authorities received an email threatening that bombs had been planted in the flight on which Chief Minister M.K. Stalin was about to fly to San Francisco. Later, it turned out to be a hoax after thoroughly checking the premises.