09-05-2012, 10:18 AM
Ankit Fadia
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Biography
Ankit went to Delhi Public School, R K Puram for school.[3] He
started a website called "HackingTruths".[4] At 15, his book on
Ethical Hacking made him the youngest author to be published by
Macmillan India.[4][5][6]
Fadia has also sponsored Singapore Management University's "Ankit
Fadia Information Security Award", which consisted of a $500 cash
prize and Certificate and was given for two years to "an outstanding
student" in the Information Security and Trust Course under the
Bachelor of Science (Information System Management) degree.[7]
Controversy
Authenticity of claims
According to Wendy McAuliffe at ZDNet UK, Fadia's Hacking
Truths website was judged "second best hacking site" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, though no
ranked list of "hacking sites" has been published by the FBI.[3]
In 2000, Chennai Online reported that Fadia's consulting clients included several of the largest technology
and financial services companies in the world. No other source corroborates that report; were it true,
Fadia's client list would exceed that of many of the largest independent security consultancies. The same
article reported Fadia's involvement in decrypting a message from an Al Qaeda operative; no other source
corroborates that claim, nor does any of Fadia's published work involve cryptography or
cryptanalysis.[8][9][10]
In April 2000, Rediff.com published an interview[11] with Ankit Fadia. Anti-India Crew (AIC), a
Pakistani hacker group noted for defacing Indian Government websites, rubbished the claims that Fadia
had made in the interview. Fadia had claimed that his alert to a U.S. spy agency had prevented an attack by
Pakistani hackers. However, he never divulged the name of the agency, citing security reasons.[4] AIC and
another Pakistani hacker group WFD defaced an Indian Government site, epfindia.gov.in, and "dedicated"
it to Fadia in mock deference to his capabilities to hack or prevent hacking.[12][13] AIC also said that it
would be defacing the website of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), www.cbec.gov.in,
within two days and challenged Fadia to prevent the attack by patching the vulnerable website. AIC
maintained that Fadia should stop calling himself a hacker, if it succeeded in hacking the CBEC
website.[12] AIC kept its promise and defaced the CBEC website after two days. At another defaced
website (bhelhyd.co.in), AIC termed the claims of Indian media about Ankit Fadia as "Bullshit".[14]
Some security experts in India dismissed him as just another fad.[15] Ankit Fadia is listed on attrition.org's
Security Scene Errata: Charlatans webpage alongside individuals such as Steve Gibson and Carolyn
Meinel. This page seeks to "point out a few cases of fakes walking among us".[16]
He has been accused of copying materials from internet and paraphrasing into his own books and lectures.
Recently, his claims have been proved false and he has been cited as fake person boastering in his own
imaginations of fancy hacking for gaining cheap publicity.[17][18]
Fadia's earlier site, Ankitfadia.com, was attacked in 2003, by a cracker who self-identified as SkriptKiddie.
Fadia explained that he was using a private web server for hosting his website and they were responsible
for the lack of security. However, all web servers give their customers an option to build their own security
installing their own (customer's) software and patches when they opt for private servers.
In December 2009 Fadia's business site, hackingmobilephones.com was hacked by a spammer promoting
pharmaceutical products for erectile dysfunction. Fadia again "claimed it had happened because of a fault
in the server that hosts his site." "The problem lies in the server and all the sites hosted by it have been
infected."
However, on February 24th, 2011 his website was hacked, yet again and this time the vulnerability was
not on the server but the website itself.
TV shows
According to the DNA Newspaper article , in Oct 2009 MTV India announced the launch of Ankit Fadia's
new TV show on MTV called What the Hack! According to the MTV India website
, on the show What The Hack! Ankit Fadia gives
tips on how to make good use of the internet and answers people's queries/questions. Internet users email
their problems to MTV India and Ankit gives them the solution.
Books and Publications
Fadia, Ankit. The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking, Course Technology PTR, 2020. ISBN
1931841721.
Fadia, Ankit. Network Security: A Hacker's Perspective, Course Technology PTR, 2020. ISBN
1598631632.
Fadia, Ankit. Hacking Mobile Phones, Course Technology PTR, 2020. ISBN 1598631063.
Fadia, Ankit. Tips and Tricks on Linux, Centro Atlantico, 2002. ISBN 972-8426-34-8.
Fadia, Ankit. Email Hacking, Vikas Publishing, 2020. ISBN 9788125918134.