Yahoo / Zimbra Software Engineer and Accused Terrorist and Hacker Finds Ethical Hacking Mindboggling

Last year,  31-year-old software engineer Mohammed Mansoor Asgar Peerbhoy, principal software engineer with Yahoo, who is now accused of masterminding terrorist attacks on India, completed a course in ethical hacking and cyber crime, posted his feedback about the course as: “Mind-boggling”. Mannu added, “Really unleashes the power of information.” You bet!

Mannu alias Peerbhoy is a principal engineer / architect at Yahoo India and reportedly earns 19, 00, 000 Rs. per year. And yet he decided to attack the very country which gave him birth, education, ensured his safety and growth to such an exalted position by bombing the country and killing hundreds and thousands of innocent people and children.

Mansoor attended the six-day course on network security at Internet security solutions firm E2Labs in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. “It was a one-time crash course on network security, and Mansoor had already done some courses on the subject,” said a spokesperson for E2Labs. The course included training in protection of information security, cyber law, phishing, hacking, identity theft and online fraud. It is obvious he made good use of his training.

Investigators said Mohammed Mansoor Peerbhoy, 31, was the head of a “media terror cell” made up of “highly qualified, computer-savvy people belonging to good and educated families” who had drafted emails sent just before or after the blasts in Delhi, Ahmedabad in Gujarat and Jaipur in Rajasthan.

“The Indian Mujahideen started a media wing with software engineers,” Rakesh Maria, joint commissioner of Mumbai police, told reporters. “They had the technical knowledge to know to send out messages just before the blasts and after the blasts took place.”

Peerbhoy was one of 15 men arrested by police in Mumbai in connection with an alleged plan to bomb the city during the current holiday season.

Peerbhoy’s role - along with two other software engineers - is alleged to have been to hack into unsecured wireless internet sites in Mumbai to send emails that spoke of “blowing apart your tourism structure … and demolishing your [Hindu] faith in the dirty mud”.

via Guardian

How involved is Mohammed Mansoor Asgar Peerbhoy?

Peerbhoy told police that his four-member team would arrive in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai from Pune on several occasions to identify the places from where there were strong WiFi signals. Peerbhoy told police that they would arrive in the city with three laptops in his personal Zen Estilo car (MHO4-CA 4493) driven by his chauffeur Ismail Choudhary.

After the work was over, two of them would take the State Transport Asiad buses from Dadar to Pune to avoid any checking on the way. Choudhary drove one of them to Pune by road.

Although investigations will continue, sources said that their focus would now be on a watertight case.

“We have already begun collecting material evidence, like weapons, jihadi literature, indoctrination CDs, explosives, anaesthesia injections, laptops containing various numbers, hawala evidence and so on,” said joint commissioner of police (crime) Rakesh Maria.

In my book that is pretty deeply involved. What do you think?

Test for ethics?

Should companies include a test for ethics before hiring? Such employees can seriously tarnish the image of their companies and their hiring policies. Imagine what would have happened if he decided to take it out on his colleagues!