Nidhi Razdan’s conversations with KashmirOsint. The handle was apparently very popular within the research community and media. There are numerous OSINT accounts on Twitter and the agenda of these accounts is most often not known. — Nidhi Razdan (@Nidhi) January 15, 2021 When she contacted the authorities at Harvard, she came to the realisation that she was the target of an elaborate phishing attack. She has filed a complaint with the police and has informed Harvard to take. Journalist Nidhi Razdan, who quit the TV news channel NDTV last year, said on Twitter that she had been the victim of a “sophisticated phishing attack” and did not actually receive an offer.
Popular TV journalist Nidhi Razdan Friday claimed that she had been a victim of a “very serious phishing attack” in which she was offered a job as an “Associate Professor of Journalism” at the prestigious Harvard University in the United States.
Nidhi Razdan Harvard Fiasco: Phishing Attack Or Is There More Than What Meets the Eye, Asks Twitter Nidhi Razdan issued a statement saying she was a victim of a sophisticated phishing attack, and that the Harvard University offer he received was fake. (Nidhi Razdan is former Executive Editor, NDTV.) Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author.
In a statement on Twitter, Razdan said that she was made to believe that she would be joining the University in September 2020 but citing the Covid pandemic was told that her classes were to begin from January.
Ndtv Nidhi Razdan
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 2020 and after 21 years with NDTV, I decided to move on and said that I would be joining Harvard University as an Associate Professor of Journalism,” said Razdan in a statement released on Twitter. “I had been given to believe that I would be joining the University in September 2020. While I was making preparations to take up my new assignment in January 2021. Along with these delays, I began noticing a number of administrative anomalies in the process being described to me.”
The journalist further said that she dismissed the “anomalies” thinking them as part of the “new normal dictated by the pandemic”.
“But recently the representations being made to me were of an even more disquieting nature. As a result, I reached out to senior authorities at Harvard University for clarity. Upon their request, I shared some of the correspondence that I believed I had received from the University,” she added.
Wow — this is awful.
For the record, @Harvard has no school of journalism, no department of journalism, and no professors of journalism.
(It does have @niemanfdn! But we have no faculty and no classes. And it does have @ShorensteinCtr, but no journalism-specific faculty.) https://t.co/AiMYkcrB6Q
— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) January 15, 2021
It was after contacting the authorities at the University, Razdan said, she realised she was a victim of a phishing attack.
“After hearing from the University, I have now learnt that I have been the victim of a sophisticated and coordinated phishing attack. I did not, in fact, receive an offer by Harvard University to join their faculty as an Associate Professor of Journalism. The perpetrators of this attack used clever forgeries and misrepresentations to obtain access to my personal data and communications and may have also gained access to my devices and my email/social media accounts,” she said in her statement.
Razdan also said she has filed a complaint with the police and has handed over relevant documents. “I have requested them (Police) to take immediate steps to identify, apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators of this abominable attack,” she added.
On June 13, Razdan had announced that she would be quitting NDTV to take up a position at the Harvard University.
Nidhi Razdan And Omar Abdullah
In her first public appearance since she admitted that her Harvard University teaching offer was a phishing attack, journalist Nidhi Razdan, who was allegedly offered a job as an Associate Professor at Harvard University, said that she wishes that people learn from her 'horrible experience' and that she came out and spoke about the issue as she did not want to lie about it. She spoke at an event conducted by the Kautilya School of Public Policy to discuss the upcoming budget and how to manage the pandemic.
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Nidhi, who has been a senior journalist with the NDTV 24x7 before she quit to take the job she thought she was offered at Harvard, said that she came out and spoke about it because she wanted people to learn from her mistake. 'It has been a traumatic week but I have learnt quite a few lessons from this. And the reason why I went public, even though people close to me asked me not to, is because I never wanted to lie and I wanted to be upfront about it. I think that if even one person learns from this, I would be very happy,' she said.
Nidhi said that she had no idea that something as harmless as a PDF file could contain malware and that she wants people to be cautious while on the internet. 'My only advice to people is that nothing on the internet is what it seems. Even online conversations with seemingly real people are not what they seem. I never realised that the PDF file I downloaded could be malware. And I know that today. The fact that there is lots of data that is synced — your passwords in websites. And that's how people see what you are searching and then profile you. Your passwords can be easily hijacked. I hope my horrible experience can help people about this,' she added.
According to reports, Nidhi has also filed a complaint with the Delhi Police on January 18 regarding 'commission of cognisable offences including forgery, cheating, identity fraud and impersonation by unknown accused against her', reported the media. Earlier, she had filed a complaint with the Jammu and Kashmir Police on January 16. She was in Srinagar at the time.