The Delhi Police in India, which is investigating criminal gangs involved in hacking and manipulating the results of well-known online exams, including the GMAT and JEE, has identified those involved in promoting and marketing claims that they can make such well-known exams pass.
A special team of Delhi Police recently arrested six people in an operation in Mumbai, Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan, and those arrested included hackers, solvers, trainers and owners of coaching institutes.
Police arrested two brothers, Arshad Dhunna (39), Salman Dhunna (28) and Hemal Shah (42), both residents of Mumbai; Kunal Goel (39), a resident of Delhi; and Mohit Sharma (35) and Raj Teotia (33), both from Karnal, Haryana.
A Delhi Police officer revealed, "The interrogation of the accused revealed that a person known as 'Huzaifa' was responsible for promoting and marketing advertisements to get the GMAT and JEE exams cleared. 'Huzaifa' would advertise anonymously on social media and the dark web. His ads would have basic details such as 'If you want to pass the GMAT, contact us'. Interested candidates would contact 'Huzaifa' and 'Huzaifa' would contact the Dhunna brothers and Shah and inform them about the person. The accused in Mumbai would then get in touch with Goel, who would then contact Sharma, who resolved the examination."
The officer added that the Huzaifa will collect about Rs. 300,000 from each candidate and will give about Rs. 80,000 to the Mumbai defendants. The Mumbai defendant would then give Rs. 50,000 to Goel, who would then give Rs. 25,000 to Sharma as payment for his work. Investigations revealed that over a period of about three years, the group helped 18 candidates pass the GMAT exam and got about 500 others to pass other exams.
Police received information that some groups were involved in unauthorized access to various competitive exams and charged high fees online to get candidates the desired scores on these prestigious exams. These syndicates advertise or claim to have access to online exams for GMAT, JEE, Cisco-Associate, Professional, Specialty, IBM-All Exams Comptia-All exams EC Council-CEH, CHFI and CCISO, among others. The police then arranged for an undercover candidate who made contact with the defendant.
On the day of the December 26 exam, the defendants asked the undercover examinee to download software called "Ultraviewer" that would allow remote access to the undercover examinee's laptop. They also connected the candidate's laptop to the solver, who participated in the entire exam, avoiding detection by the proctor and other security measures. The hackers gained access to the laptop and disguised the remote access file as a system file. A police officer said, "The undercover candidate scored 780 out of a total of 800 points, a whopping 97 percent correct, and can now gain admission to a top global MBA school."
Technical analysis of telecom and financial data led to the identification of the syndicate members, who were found to be based in Mumbai. on Jan. 1, the Dhunna brothers and Shah from Mahim were arrested. The three men were primarily involved in striking deals with candidates and then connecting them to the module responsible for solving the questions, thereby gaining access and solving the exam. Based on their interrogation, the other suspects were arrested.Teotia revealed that he had been working on online exam hacking and solving for the past five years and that he was also in contact with Russian hackers to crack the exam. He had visited Russia in 2018 and Russian hackers had stayed at his residence during the blockade. Teotia is also wanted by the CBI and Haryana police, police said.
The GMAT® exam is the only standardized test designed for graduate business and management admissions worldwide, with more than 550 test centers in more than 110 countries.The GMAT® exam has been adopted by nearly 5,300 graduate business and management programs worldwide.GMAC® is headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with regional offices in London, New Delhi and Hong Kong.
The JEE exam is the Joint Entrance Examination of India, similar to the Chinese exam, and is a nightmare for many Indian students.