Hoax bomb threats to Bengaluru, Bhopal schools: Teenager in TN sold software used to send emails

Chennai / Bengaluru: Selling software to a foreign client on Telegram app has landed an Indian teenager in big trouble with the law after it was used to send bomb hoax emails to schools in Bengaluru and Bhopa recently.

An IANS report said the 17-year-old student from Salem, who aspires to open his own software company,  had developed a Bot software programme (software programme that performs automated, repetitive and pre-defined tasks) for an overseas client. The programme was used for sending multiple emails. He sold the programme to a foreign client through Telegram App and collected $200 dollars through Bitcoin as the price for the programme.

However, the boy landed in trouble when Bengaluru and Bhopal police tracked him after finding out that hoax bomb threats through emails were sent to top schools in Bengaluru in April and in Bhopal in May.

Amit Kumar, DCP (Crime Branch), Bhopal Police, told IANS that while the bomb threats turned out to be hoax, it took long hours for the bomb squad to find out that they were hoax emails.

He also said that the police traced the mails to the IP address of the 17-year-old boy and found out that he was a resident of Salem in Tamil Nadu, who is the son of a librarian. The Bengaluru police also found out that the IP address of the Salem boy was the genesis of the threat mails.

Bhopal and Bengaluru police will be serving notice to the boy to cooperate with them in the probe to locate the foreigner who had sent the hoax bomb threat mails to schools in their respective states.

An official of the Tamil Nadu cyber security wing told IANS that the department is planning an awareness campaign among students about the perils of communicating with unknown persons over the internet.

(With IANS inputs)