V/D/C NEWS:
NEW DELHI: The CBI has apprehended a Russian hacker who is supposedly the mastermind behind the JEE mains paper leak case reported last year. The suspect had a look out circular issued against him and was detained at immigration at the Delhi airport upon arrival from Kazakhstan. The suspect has been identified as Mikhail Shargin, officials said, Shargin was brought for questioning to the agency headquarters and was likely to be arrested post midnight, sources said.
Deep technical infiltration revealed that the accused had allegedly tampered with the iLeon software -- the platform on which the JEE was conducted -- and helped the other accused in hacking the computer systems of suspect candidates during the examination, the source added. The CBI had filed an FIR on September 1, 2021 last year against a private company, its directors, three of its employees and some middlemen on allegations of irregularities being committed in the ongoing JEE (Mains) Exams 2021 by a private educational institution. The staff posted at the examination centre and some touts were alleged to be involved.
According to the FIR, the accused company and its directors were manipulating the online examination of JEE (Mains) and facilitating aspiring students to get admission in top NITs in lieu of a huge amount. The accused were manipulating the system and solving the question paper for their applicant by hacking it and taking control through remote access from a particular examination centre in Sonepat, Haryana, said an official. After the registration of FIR, searches were conducted at 19 places in Delhi-NCR, Pune, Jamshedpur, Indore and Bangalore which led to recovery of 25 laptops, seven PCs, around 30 post-dated cheques, marksheets along with voluminous incriminating documents and devices.
During investigation, it came to light that some foreign nationals were involved in compromising many online examinations including JEE by colliding with some Indian nationals.
