Ankit Fadia is an Indian computer security consultant based in Silicon
Valley, USA. He has authored several books on computer security. Fadia
is currently pursuing his Bachelors in Management Science &
Engineering at Stanford University.

Fadia was educated at Delhi Public School. He started a website called
"HackingTruths", which he claims was judged as the "second best
hacking site in the world by the FBI". He claims that when he was 14,
he trashed the front page of an Indian magazine's website. He then
sent an e-mail to the editor confessing to the hack, suggesting
counter measures. At 15, his book on Ethical Hacking made him the
youngest author to be published by Macmillan India. He claims that in
2001, he discovered links between the Chinese government and the China
Eagle Union, a cracker group responsible for defacing many U.S. web
sites. He stated that the "long-term goal of the Chinese government is
actually to take over the internet and control all parts of the
internet". However none of these claims have been proved by
substantial evidence so far.


As per his claims, in November 2001, Fadia was consulted by a
classified intelligence agency for breaking an encrypted message which
was believed to have been sent by one of Osama Bin Laden's men. No
evidence has ever been found to support this claim too. Many
publications wrongly reported that Fadia is associated with FBI or
CIA, however, he himself denied this.


In April 2002, Rediff.com published an interview with Ankit Fadia.
Anti-India Crew (AIC), a Pakistani hacker group noted for defacing
Indian Government websites, rubbished the claims that Fadia had made
in the interview. Fadia had claimed that his alert to a U.S. spy
agency had prevented an attack by Pakistani hackers. However, he never
divulged the name of the agency, citing security reasons. AIC and
another Pakistani hacker group WFD defaced an Indian Government site,
epfindia.gov.in, and "dedicated" it to Fadia in mock deference to his
capabilities to hack or prevent hacking. AIC also said that it would
be defacing the website of the Central Board of Excise and Customs
(CBEC), www.cbec.gov.in, within two days and challenged Fadia to
prevent the attack by patching the vulnerable website. AIC maintained
that Fadia should stop calling himself a hacker, if it succeeded in
hacking the CBEC website. AIC kept its promise and defaced the CBEC
website after two days. At another defaced website (bhelhyd.co.in),
AIC termed the claims of Indian media about Ankit Fadia as "Bullshit".


Fadia's earlier site, Ankitfadia.com, was attacked in 2003, by a
cracker who self-identified as SkriptKiddie. Fadia explained that he
was using a private web server for hosting his website and they were
responsible for the lack of security.


Fadia has also claimed that he works closely with the Government of
Singapore. He has also conducted many lectures and workshops for
companies, college students and several lawenforcement agencies.



Future plans

In 2005, Fadia said that he is going to write a thriller on the lines
of Dan Brown's Digital Fortress, which he hopes to make into a movie.
He claimed that a production company has approached him with a blanket
offer. He said that he was also planning a restaurant in Pune or
Ahmedabad.

Recognition

Ankit Fadia has been honored with numerous awards, including the IT
Leader Award 2005 and the Indo-American Society Young Achiever Award
2005. In 2002, the Limca Book of Records declared him among the
"People of The Year". Ankit Fadia has also sponsored the "Ankit Fadia
Information Security Award", which is given annually by The Singapore
Management University, to an outstanding student in the Information
Security and Trust Course under the Bachelor of Science (Information
System Management) degree programme.

Criticism

In 2006, questions were raised about authenticity of Fadia's various
claims at many discussion groups, forums, and mailing lists. This was
triggered by a post titled "Ankit Fadia : The real picture". His
critics claim that he is overhyped and point out that he is that he
has never developed any hacking technique, tool, or algorithm, and
none of his tutorials or books had original content.


Many experts in India have dismissed him as just another fad. Many
reviewers at Amazon.com said that he had copied outdated hacking
tutorials from the Internet and compiled them into a book.


Ankit Fadia is listed on attrition.org's Security Scene Errata:
Charlatans webpage alongside individuals such as Steve Gibson and
Carolyn Meinel. This page seeks to "point out a few cases of fakes
walking among us". Elsewhere on the Errata section of the attrition
site, Fadia's claims in interview are treated with extreme skepticism
and subjected to criticism.
--

    From.
    Vishal Thakar