Mumbai: Girl hacks teen's Instagram account, uploads obscene photos

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A 17-year-old's quest to learn and perfect 'hacking' ended up becoming a month-long nightmare for over 50 people, which ended with her being taken into police custody. The crime branch arrested the minor on October 19 for allegedly hacking another 17-year-old's Instagram account, uploading and sending obscene pictures and content and torturing 50 to 55 students. The matter came to light in August. The girl wasn't able to access her Instagram account, and was being told by her friends about obscene pictures being uploaded on her profile. While the girl was trying to gather more information about how this happened, her relatives approached her parents, asking them why their daughter was putting up such pictures. Upon being confronted by her parents, the girl said she did not know how this happened.

Parents approach cops
Her parents immediately decided to take the matter to the police and an offence was registered at the Meghwadi police station on September 3 under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the IT Act. Crime Branch's unit 10 also stepped in to probe the matter after some more of the complainant's friends came in to complain about receiving vulgar content. The crime branch began its probe, and through its technical analysis and assistance from the criminal intelligence unit (operations) zeroed down on a girl residing in a western suburb. A crime branch officer said, "We found that the complainant's account had been hacked with the help of a software that sent a link via a direct message [on Instagram]. When we checked the route of the hacker, we zeroed down on a 17-year-old girl." The accused is a Std XII science student from a reputed city college. When the crime branch officials asked her about why she did all of this, her answer was: "Just for fun."

Teach me how to hack
Explaining how all of this began, the officer said, "The accused girl had approached some of her friends who were studying engineering, and made up a story telling them that she wanted to teach a lesson to someone who had hacked her friend's account." She wanted to learn hacking for the purpose. Her friends directed her to websites and software that aided hacking. Soon enough, the teen created 10 e-mail IDs and more than 25 Instagram accounts. "Whenever she would get stuck in the process, she would call or text her friends to ask about what she should do next," said another officer, adding, "After trial and error, the girl finally managed to randomly pick the complainant's account for the hack job by sending her a link."

Upside down
As soon as the victim clicked on the ominous link, her world turned upside down. Her friends started getting tagged in crude pictures. "It was really strange. At first, I thought this happened mistakenly, but it kept repeating. Some of us got direct messages with such content," said one of the teens who'd approached cops, adding, "We called our friend to ask why she was doing this; she said even she didn't know why and how this was happening." The how emerged later in the probe. Cops learnt that the accused was doing all of this from her home, while 'learning' hacking. "Interestingly, she'd used her sister's number for doing all of this, on Sundays and public holidays," said another officer. "The accused girl has been booked under relevant sections of IT Act and sections 500 (defamation) and 509 (insulting the modesty of woman). The accused has been remanded in police custody of the Meghwadi police station.

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