Writing career and plagiarism
Fadia's writing career began when he founded a website called hackingtruths.box.sk, where he wrote hacking tutorials. [9] [2] [12] [13] At the age of 15, Fadia authored An Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking which made him the youngest author published by Macmillan India. [8] [10] Following his initial publication, Fadia wrote additional books on computer security, spoke at seminars across schools and colleges in India, [14] and launched his own training courses, including the "Ankit Fadia Certified Ethical Hacker" (AFCEH) program. [15] However, his work has faced accusations of plagiarism. [16] [17] In 2011, Jericho of attrition.org discovered that two of Ankit Fadia's books were plagiarized from other sources. [18] About half of Network Intrusion Alert and a third of The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking were found to be copied from pre-existing works. [18]
Hacking claims
Many security and cryptography professionals have characterized Fadia as a self-proclaimed expert whose claims lack substance. [16] Fadia has dismissed the critics who question his credibility as an expert, saying "If I had been fake, my growth would have stopped 10 years ago". [8]
After the September 11 attacks, Fadia claimed that he was hired by a U.S. intelligence agency to decipher Al-Qaeda communications in November 2001. [19] Later, he also claimed to have consulted for India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on a cybercrime case. [19]
In 2002, Fadia claimed to have defaced the website of the Indian edition of CHIP magazine at age 17, asserting that the editor subsequently offered him a job. [2] [20] However, in 2012, the Forbes India executive editor Charles Assisi, who was the editor of CHIP India at the time, denied that the incident ever occurred after consulting with his predecessor and successor. [21] Fadia also stated in a 2002 interview that a year ago, he had thwarted an attempt by Kashmiri separatist hackers to deface an Indian website. [9] He claimed to have gathered information on the attackers, infiltrated their online chats, and sent the details to a US intelligence agency for which he was working. [22] The name of the organization was not disclosed for security reasons. [2] In response, the Pakistani hacker group Anti-India Crew (AIC) questioned his abilities by hacking the Indian government website epfindia.gov.in and dedicating the defacement to Fadia. [23] AIC also publicly challenged him to prevent them from defacing the CBEC website within two days; Fadia was unsuccessful. [24]
In 2003, Fadia claimed to have infiltrated a hacker group and alleged that Pakistani intelligence agencies were paying "westerners" to deface Indian websites. [17]
In 2009, Fadia stated that he was working as an internet security consultant for "prestigious companies" in New York. [25] He also endorsed the Flying Machine jeans brand of Arvind Mills. [26]
Fadia's own website has been compromised at least nine times despite his claim of being a hacker. [16] [19] After a 2009 defacement, he attributed the breach to a vulnerability in his web host's servers. However, independent security experts contended that the issue was a loophole within his own website's code. His website was also hacked by an Indian hacker, Himanshu Sharma, after accepting a challenge from Fadia. [27] In 2012, Fadia was given a "Security Charlatan of the Year" award at the DEF CON hacking conference. That same year, after Fadia issued a public challenge, a group known as "Team Grey Hat" compromised his personal website on January 7, 2012, and released data obtained from it. [28] [19] His site was also defaced twice by hackers who disputed his claims and accused him of misleading the public. [29]
TV host
In 2008, Fadia began hosting the television show MTV What the Hack! on MTV India with José Covaco. In 2009, he launched a second show on MTV India, where he answered internet-related questions submitted by viewers. [30] [31]
In 2012, Fadia and Dell India created a video series on computer and mobile phone usage, which was distributed on the Dell India Facebook page. [32] [33] A year later, Fadia started the YouTube show Geek on the Loose in collaboration with PING networks. [34] The show was based on his book. [35]
