Ever since lockdown placed billions indoors in 2020, hackers have made hay while the sun shined: Spear-phishing attacks, which Kaspersky defines as an email or electronic communications scam targeted towards a specific individual, organization or business, were on the rise.
The latest victim is senior journalist Nidhi Razdan, who quit her job of 21 years after receiving an email in June 2020 claiming to offer her a teaching position at Harvard. Seven months since, she took to Twitter to announce that the offer was fake and that she had filed a police complaint.
“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,” she tweeted, sharing her narration of events.
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
In June, she had announced that she would be joining Harvard University as an Associate Professor of Journalism.
While she was initially told she could join in September, it was then delayed to January due to the pandemic. After noticing more and more delays and anomalies in the process, she began to get suspicious. Finally, she reached out to Harvard and realised she had been the victim of a serious and sophisticated phishing attack.
“The perpetrators of this attack used clever forgeries and misrepresentations to obtain access to my devices and my email/social media accounts,” she wrote.
Spear-phishing attacks can have far-reaching consequences: It was such an attack on a Twitter employee in 2020 that led to hackers gaining access to a slew of celebrity accounts including those of Bill Gates, Joe Biden and Barack Obama, after members of Twitter staff fell victim to the same.
