Trio held by cyber crime wing for students’ data breach

Officials from Directorate of Government Examinations had submitted a petition to City Police Commissioner AK Viswanathan in this regard. The arrested were identified as P Praveen Chowdry (39) of Vadapalani, A Sudhakar (32) of Vadapalani and Venkata Rao (50) of T Nagar. “Preliminary investigation suggested that Praveen Chowdry, the proprietor of Nari Technologies Pvt Ltd obtained the details and sold them on websites for money,” a CCB official said. 

Sources said Sudhakar, who runs a website designing firm, allegedly helped Chowdry in creating and designing more than 10 websites and uploading details on the net. “Venkata Rao of K Square India Technologies Pvt Ltd bought the details and used it for commercial purposes,” an officer said. All the three persons are in judicial remand. While parents of the students who appeared for Class 10 and 12 public exams were miffed over getting numerous calls from private institutions luring them with offers to admit their wards, it was widely speculated on social media and blogs that the students’ details could have been leaked to them for a commission. 

A few days ago, Director of DGE Vasundhara Devi approached Viswanathan and lodged a complaint against the data breach. “The details of students were sold to private websites. The information was used for commercial purposes, degrading the State government and the Department,” the complaint stated. 

Based on the complaint, the cyber crime police registered a case under various Sections and carried out investigations which led to details emerging regarding details of students, including their names, address, date of birth, community name and phone number being stolen from the database. 

Meanwhile, an investigation has been initiated to find the possible connivance of Department employees in the data breach. “Further details will be revealed after interrogating the arrested persons,” a CCB source said.