Nidhi Razdan falls victim to sophisticated phishing attack

Popular TV journalist Nidhi Razdan has fallen victim to a highly sophisticated phishing campaign. 

Razdan took to Twitter to reveal the incident. She was conned to believe a job opportunity at the prestigious Harvard University, as Associate Professor of Journalism. The letterhead of the university and email IDs were said to be forged to resemble the original.

Trusting the job offer, Razdan quit her job at New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) in June 2020, where she worked for more than 21 years. She was told to join the university in September 2020 but was pushed to January 2021.

She was made to believe that the postponement of the joining date was due to strict Covid-19 protocols. Razdan also began to notice some anomalies with administrative directives to join the university.

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To get proper clarity, she contacted senior executives at Harvard University for the date to join the university. To her shock, it was revealed that there was never a vacancy for a teaching staff position in the institution.

"I did not, in fact, receive an offer by Harvard University to join their faculty as an Associate Professor of Journalism. The perpetrators of this attack used clever forgeries and misrepresentations to obtain access to my personal data and communications and may also gain access to my devices and my email/social media accounts,"

Alarmed at the scale of the cyberattack, Razdan has filed a complaint with the police and provided documentary evidence to help the probe in identifying and prosecuting the criminals.

I have been the victim of a very serious phishing attack. I’m putting this statement out to set the record straight about what I’ve been through. I will not be addressing this issue any further on social media. pic.twitter.com/bttnnlLjuh

— Nidhi Razdan (@Nidhi) January 15, 2021

She has requested Harvard University to take the issue of misrepresentation and forgery seriously and investigate it.

Razdan added that she has spoken to several persons and organisations to keep them informed of the hacking incident. Razdan has declined to comment more on this on the social media platform.

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