Nidhi was going to travel to Harvard University to start her new job, but she got a stunning email.
Ms. Razdan was a famous news anchor in India and thought she would soon start teaching at Harvard.
She had told the world that she was leaving the news business for America and she had freely shared her most important personal information with her new employer.
She read a message from an associate dean at Harvard when she opened her phone in the middle of January.
There is no record of your name or appointment.
I wish you the best for your future.
Ms. Razdan felt unwell. She had given up a high-flying career in journalism and fallen into an intricate online hoax.
Ms. Razdan said she couldn't believe it.
The hoax exploited Harvard's prestige, the confusion caused by the Pandemic, and her own digital naveté. At the time she went public, what happened to her seemed to be an isolated incident. But it was not. One of the prominent female journalists in India was targeted even after one of the women told Harvard and the public about the unusual cyberoperation.
Harvard's reputation for fiercely protecting its brand was questioned after the incidents, as it did not act to stop the scam even after being warned about it. The risk of wrongdoers hiding their identities on the internet is likely to get worse as the technology used in digital fakery continues to improve.
The people behind the hoax were relentless. They created a constellation of interlocking personas across 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 They did not seem to use the personal information they stole to steal money or extort the women, leaving their ultimate goal a mystery.
It is not clear why Ms. Razdan and the other women were targeted. Although the scam artists expressed their support for the Hindu nationalist movement in India, they did not reveal their plan to trick reporters.
Most of the perpetrators have covered their tracks. The New York Times reviewed private messages, emails, and archives of the scam emails that were sent to the women. Researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of Stanford studied online abuse, as well as a cybersecurity expert who examined Ms. Razdan's computer.
The identities of the scam artists are a secret.
Bill Marczak is a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab, an institute at the University of Toronto that investigates cyberattacks on journalists. There is a huge amount of effort and no payoff.
One at a time, the scam artists chose their victims.
Powerful men in India didn't like the fact that a female journalist broke some big stories that they didn't like.
Ms. Singh wrote an article about the business fortunes of the son of India's current minister of home affairs. She is a contributor to an online publication that is critical of the Hindu nationalist government in India. She has a total of nearly 817,000 followers on the social networking site.
Ms. Singh received a message from someone who claimed to be a student at the Harvard Kennedy School. He invited her to participate in a high-powered media conference after they chatted about Lucknow. All expenses would be picked up by Harvard.
She was curious. She was suspicious after she was connected to a colleague who wrote to her from a Gmail account. Both Alex and Tauseef had phone numbers that were not based in the United States.
Alex and Tauseef asked her for her passport details and some photos, which were to be used for promotional purposes.
Ms. Singh stopped communication after she was convinced their appeal was a scam.
Another female journalist was the next target. The Hindu nationalist government is causing a problem of discrimination against Muslims. She wrote and posted many critical observations of the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Ms. Sikander received a message on August 22, 2019, from a man named Tauseef Ahmad, who invited her to attend a media conference at Harvard. The same message was sent to both women.
The image is.
Nighat Abbass, a spokeswoman for the Indian B.J.P., was a target in an online scam.
Ms. Sikander was chatting with a person on the app. She was not thrown off by the fact that he claimed to be in the Boston area, even though he started his phone number with the country code of the United Arab Emirates. She thought he might have been a foreign student with connections in the United States. She thought his voice was that of Pakistan, with a South Asian accent.
Just like in Ms. Singh's case, Alex was connected to her. She didn't know that Alex and Tauseef were fake, and that no students by either name were in Harvard's student directory.
Ms. Sikander didn't know that the account was one of several online personas that were linked. The two of them seemed so friendly, sending her confirmations for the flights and hotels they claimed to have booked.
One of their messages said, "This room and this hotel fine for you."
She was told to beware. She asked for a formal invite from the dean. Ms. Sikander stopped contact.
India was dominated by Kashmir at the time. The autonomy of the Kashmir region, a Muslim-majority area that has been the source of a long-standing feud between India and Pakistan, was wiped away by the Indian government.
The Indian government was very sensitive about criticism. More than 2,000 Kashmiris were thrown in jail, including the region's top politicians, after it severed internet service to Kashmir.
Ms. Sikander wrote about the government's action in Kashmir. Some analysts think that the scam may have gone after her because of her views.
The female journalist who spoke with The Times on the condition that she was not identified was working at a prominent Indian publication. She broke off contact because she was suspicious about the phone number. The scam artists didn't give up. The B.J.P., India's ruling political party, copied email signatures from real Harvard employees and swiped official letterhead from the university's website by the time they communicated with Nighat Abbass.
The image is.
The identifying information has been blacked out.
They opened a new account under the name Seema Singh, who claimed she was based in India and that she was a "coder", a term that is preferred by nationalists who see India as a colonial term. She tagged Ms. Sikander and other women in the scam.
She said in one message that she looked so hot. Can I join you in the shower?
Seema Singh claimed to be a bisexual employee ofDeutsche Bank. A spokesman for the bank said there were no employees by that name. She was very familiar with Indian politics, commenting on the often raw divide between India's majority Hindus and minority Muslims and calling out personal connections that the women targeted in the scam had with Kashmir.
Ms. Abbass didn't notice Seema's account was raunchy. Excited about going to America for the first time, she focused on sending and receiving emails.
The image is.
Seema Singh posted a selfies to her account. Seema was accused of faking her online persona. It is not clear if the photograph is of Seema or someone else.
The Harvard administrators were included in the emails and Ms. Abbass decided to check them out.
Bailey Payne, a program coordination in the office of Harvard's vice provost for international affairs, said the official invitation that appeared to have been sent from her Harvard.edu email address was fake. When Ms. Payne asked Ms. Abbass if she would like to give more information, she cooperated. The phone number from the U.A.E., the emails, and the fake Harvard documents were all sent to her.
It is not clear what action Harvard took. Ms. Payne didn't reply to questions. The information Ms. Abbass gave the university was not given to Harvard.
The hacker or hackers were well practiced by the time they reached out to Ms. Razdan.
They were also attracting attention. Ms. Abbass warned others to watch out for the scam in the same month. Seema was accused of faking her online persona by India's users on the social media site. She claimed to be a civil servant with the Indian Police Service and threatened to file complaints against her accusers.
Despite the accusations, the account under that name regularly posted photos of her. It's not clear if the photos actually depicted her or if they were stolen.
One of the most prominent female Indian journalists of her generation was Ms. Razdan.
She had covered India's biggest stories over the course of more than 20 years. The anchor of the 9 o'clock news program on NDTV was a familiar face across a nation of over one billion people and she was polite but fearless.
Her former boss said that she was the top of the pile.
She was fried by the end of 2019.
The year was marked by a conflict between India and Pakistan, as well as national elections and the reorganization of Kashmir. I was mentally and physically exhausted.
She was trolled by India's right wing and said to herself: "If I don't try something new now, I never will."
It was as if the people were watching her.
The image is.
Tony Luong is a reporter for The New York Times.
The first email came from a student namedMelissa who invited her to a Harvard seminar. She was introduced to another student by email. Ms. Razdan let her hopes go up when he said there might be a journalism job at Harvard.
She thought it would be the start of a new world.
Ms. Razdan was interviewing with a person who claimed to be a real vice provost at Harvard. She didn't see him. The interviewer was on the phone.
She said that she messed up at this location. I should have said it was a video call.
The scam artists were taking steps to impersonate Harvard. In January 2020 they bought a website and set up a Microsoft email server that would allow them to send messages stamped with Harvard's name. Privacy protection that obscured their names from public registries of website owners was what they chose to do.
She was asked for references. Each of the people she enlisted received an official looking email from HarvardCareer.com with a web link to submit a recommendation.
The image is.
The image is.
Mr. Roy remembered that there was a Harvard shield. I didn't have any doubts.
Mr.Newton, the university spokesman, wouldn't say if Harvard had detected HarvardCareer.com. The scam continued to use it to send emails. They used employment documents from Harvard as a ruse as the scam advanced.
In February 2020, Ms. Razdan was told the job was hers. She was making less than 151,000 a year. She received a lengthy contract that included a lot of information. She was told how her Harvard faculty ID would allow her to get discounts at Boston-area museums. She was so excited that she barely kept her excitement to herself. She announced to the world in June 2020.
I am moving on. I will be starting as an Associate Professor teaching journalism at Harvard University later this year.
The news was spread even further, from some of India's biggest names. The opposition politician with millions of followers lamented, " will miss you, Nidhi."
No one at Harvard, which has many students and professors from India or who follow India closely, seemed to put two and two together: that Nidhi Razdan, the famous journalist, was announcing that she had a job at Harvard when there was no such job.
The classes were supposed to start in September. Ms. Razdan was sent forms on Harvard stationery for her visa application, salary payments, and medical insurance. Harvard made the documents public after they were stolen.
She received an email saying that classes were delayed because of Covid-19. The scam would use the Pandemic as an excuse for delays or slip-ups.
Team Viewer is a software that allows computers to connect to each other. Ms. Razdan didn't know that Team Viewer would allow the scam to access her laptop. She downloaded the software to help her.
Ms. Razdan was eager to connect with faculty members. She was invited to do a video call with Emma Densch, a real dean at Harvard.
The calls were canceled at the last minute each time with a different excuse. She was told that the dean had to deal with a faculty suicide.
Ms. Razdan became annoyed with what she thought was flakiness by December. She was annoyed that she hadn't been paid yet. She reached out to the human resources department at Harvard. They didn't reply. She asked about the canceled video calls.
Ms. Densch's assistant said that Ms. Razdan was never on the dean's schedule.
The assistant asked who he was talking to.
Ms. Razdan signed her contract in a flurry of correspondence.
She knew something was wrong but she had no idea she was being tricked.
She said she thought they were bureaucratic problems. Delays because of the Pandemic.
She received the email in the middle of the night. She never went to sleep again.
She turned to Jiten Jain, the director of a cybersecurity firm in India, to perform a forensic analysis of her laptop and devices. Mr. Jain told The New York Times that Ms. Razdan's email account was likely to have been hacked. Mr. Jain found remnants of a suspicious installer file on her computer, a sign that she may have been the victim of a computer crime.
The image is.
Jiten Jain, the director of the Indian firm, performed a forensic analysis on Ms. Razdan's laptop and devices.
Ms. Razdan went public with her story, saying that she had been tricked. Speculation about who could have been behind the attack was sparked by her disclosure. Other victims of the scam thought they might have been targets of a foreign government.
The first reporter to be tried on by the scam was Ms. Singh. The government does it. Ms. Singh pointed to her previous experience being targeted by a piece of software that was believed to have been purchased by the Indian government as proof that it was willing to interfere with the press. The Ministry of Home Affairs did not respond to questions.
Mr. Jain thought that foreign governments might have played a role. He found a file on Ms. Razdan's computer that was suspicious, and it was linked to a hacking group.
Mr. Jain believes that the scam that targeted Ms. Razdan was part of a larger operation that included other websites that claimed to be career pages for other Ivy League universities.
Mr. Jain said that it appeared that a group of sophisticated actors were running a targeted campaign.
The tech companies said that government agencies had not played a role.
In January, the accounts of two people were suspended by the company. The company can't publicly identify the other accounts because it doesn't share user data unless it can determine that the users are participating in a state-backed campaign.
Six accounts were suspended as fake because of our platform manipulation. The accounts were not state-backed, the spokeswoman said.
The accounts set up by the scam have been suspended. There was no evidence that this was a state-sponsored campaign. A Microsoft spokesman said that the email server used by the scam had been purchased through a company called GoDaddy, and that it did not have payment details that could be used to identify the person running the email server. The customer was not identified by GoDaddy.
Dan Race, a spokesman for GoDaddy, said that the company takes customer privacy very seriously and doesn't discuss account details unless a court order is given.
The women may have been targeted by an individual who was aligned with the Hindu nationalist ruling party in India and willing to go to great lengths to humiliate those who spoke out against the divide between Hindus and Muslims. The Seema account, which was like an alter ego to the more mild Tauseef account, ranted about these issues.
The email addresses of Alex and Tauseef were connected to a phone, thanks to the analysis of the messages done by Miles McCain. Mr. McCain said that the small detail could puncture theories that the women were targeted by a group of people.
The spokeswoman wouldn't comment on the specific accounts. She said that when they detect that a user is the target of a government-backed attack, they alert them that they are at risk.
The emails were sent from internet addresses in the U.A.E., not Boston, and the phone number used by Tauseef was in the U.A.E.
There were more questions raised by the findings of Mr. Jain. Was it from within India or from somewhere else in the U.A.E., Pakistan, or China? Strangely, the emails did not contain so-called Phishing links, a clue that might have revealed more about how the reporters' information was obtained and who was behind the intrusions
Ms. Razdan retreated from the public eye after learning she had been tricked. She lost some weight. She didn't want to have friends. The Indian police have begun their own investigation but have not made any findings public.
She urged Harvard to investigate, saying that someone or a group of people had impersonated senior Harvard officials and forged their signatures.
She said that Harvard never wrote back.
Ms. Razdan has begun to rebuild her life in the past few months. She found a job teaching public policy at an Indian university and writes a weekly column for a paper in the Middle East.
She spends a lot of time by herself, rotating through feelings of anger, regret and shame.
She keeps asking herself how she could be so stupid.
Haley, Ben, andErin Woo were involved in the reporting.
