One at a time, the scammers selected their prey. “It’s a huge amount of effort and no payoff that we’ve identified.” ‘This hotel fine for you?’ “It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen,” said Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab, an institute at the University of Toronto that investigates cyberattacks on journalists.
The identities of the scammers remain a secret. The Times also relied on analysis from researchers at Stanford University and the University of Toronto who study online abuse, and from a cybersecurity expert who examined Ms. The New York Times reviewed private messages, emails and metadata the scammers sent to the women as well as archives of the scammers’ tweets and photos that the scammers claimed were of themselves. The perpetrators have successfully covered their tracks - at least, most of them. Although the scammers expressed support online for the Hindu nationalist movement in India, they shed little light on their decision to trick reporters. Razdan and the other women were targeted. Nearly a year later, it is still uncertain why Ms. Unlike typical online fraudsters, they did not appear to use the personal information they extracted to steal money or to extort the women, leaving their ultimate goal a mystery. They created a constellation of interlocking personas across Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and WhatsApp to pursue the women for months at a time. The people - or person - behind the hoax were relentless. They also revealed how easy it is for wrongdoers to hide their identities on the internet, a risk that is likely to get worse as the technology used in digital fakery continues to improve. The incidents raised questions about why Harvard - despite its reputation for fiercely protecting its brand - did not act to stop the scam, even after being explicitly warned about it. Razdan was one of several prominent female journalists and media personalities in India who were targeted, even after one of the women alerted Harvard and the public about the unusual cyberoperation. At the time she went public, what had happened to her seemed like a shocking but isolated incident. Razdan exploited Harvard’s prestige, the confusion caused by the pandemic, and her own digital naïveté. She had thrown away a high-flying career in journalism and fallen into an intricate online hoax.
The email closed: “I wish you the best for your future.” “There is no record of, nor any knowledge of, your name or your appointment.” But when she swiped open her phone in the middle of a January night, she read the following message, from an associate dean at Harvard:
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