Chennai: A 17-year-old lad from Tamil Nadu, who found defects in the IRCTC website, won the appreciation of Minister for Technology of Tamil Nadu Mano Thangaraj.
P Ranganathan (17), a student from Tambaram, Chennai, a student of XII standard (Commerce division) at Private Higher Secondary School, Sareyur, found a bug in the IRCTC website.
Speaking to ETV Bharat, he said, "I am studying cyber security. Meanwhile, unidentified persons hacked our school website. I came to know about this through the school administration. I conducted a review and found that data had been stolen from the school system. Later, I rectified it immediately."
I have been creating protocols since 2020. In addition, I have identified and provided instructions to more than 25 companies like LinkedIn and Lenovo to identify the defects on their websites. On August 30, I booked a ticket on the IRCTC website for my grandparents. Then, I accidentally studied coding where the website was running. I found out that there were few flaws in it.
"Therefore, I took the transaction ID of the book-takers through coding. With this, food can be ordered without the knowledge of the people, who have booked it. The departure point can be modified and the ticket can be cancelled. It is possible to misuse the data of lakhs of passengers. I immediately sent an e-mail to the Indian Computer Emergency Action Committee."
"I was contacted by the emergency team by e-mail. Then, they assured to fix the defect quickly. The defect on the IRCTC website was rectified on September 4. On learning about my achievement, the Minister for Technology of Tamil Nadu, Mano Thangaraj, called me over the phone and appreciated me. Later, he issued a certificate. My ambition is to become the global software analyst in the future."
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