“Hacking is my passion,” says 20-year-old cyber-crime expert, Sunny Vaghela, who has been helping the Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Ahmedabad Crime Branch ever since the Ahmedabad serial blasts and the ensuing threat e-mails sent to various organisations. Now, he is taking hacking and issues of cyber security to new heights by educating young MSU engineers from the Faculty of Technology and Engineering in Vadodara.

In a talk titled ‘Gen Next Terror’, Vaghela plans to address at least 30 colleges across the state, educating students about the ways in which many terrorists in the recent times have been using SMSes and emails as a weapon to spread fear.

“Since the private licencees of various mobile service providers and some of the Internet service providers have secure networks, it becomes easier for the terror operatives to send such messages,” said Vaghela, an ethical hacker who was recently honoured with the Rajiv Gandhi Young Achiever's award for his contribution to police departments in Maharashtra and Gujarat.

He added: “As most of the internet service providers do not maintain a real time log of the events in form of emails and message exchanges, terrorists find it very easy to penetrate the networks and leave the same without a trace.”

Vaghela said that although Gujarat is well equipped to handle terror, there is a lack of trained staff. “There are systems in place to tackle such situations, but the police need more staff to handle these machines,” he said.

Meanwhile, Vaghela baffled most MSU students by hacking government websites in seconds. “Most of the government websites have loopholes. They immediately give out confidential information or allow access to the servers, which can be penetrated by anyone who knows basic hacking,” he said. Vaghela has solved many interesting cyber crime cases, including a fraud case wherein an Ahmedabad based man was cheating a US-based company by sending fake emails to its customers. “I went along with the Ahmedabad Special Operations Group to get him arrested,” Vaghela said.