Dubai: A male secretary is standing trial for hacking into a United Nations employee's private e-mail, threatening her and stealing a copy of her credit card.
Dubai Public Prosecution charged the 24-year-old Egyptian suspect, M.A., with hacking into the 32-year-old Emirati woman, M.S.'s, e-mail, stealing her password and threatening to reveal some of her secrets via e-mail.
The suspect pleaded innocent and denied the charges before the Dubai Court of First Instance earlier.
The victim, who works for the UN office in Abu Dhabi, said in court yesterday she was unable to access her private e-mail because her password had been hacked into. She contacted the e-mail service provider who reset it.
She told presiding judge Abdul Majid Al Nezamy that Dubai police had informed her that a large amount of her private files and documents had been hacked into.
In her statement to the public prosecution, M.S. said: "I received on my UN mail an e-mail which was sent from my Yahoo private mail. The e-mail read 'I successfully hacked into your e-mail'. Then I received another e-mail on my Yahoo account [after obtaining the new password] and it was in Egyptian."
Astonished
The sender's e-mail read 'I took your mail, saved your picture and other files following your permission... you have two days until Saturday night to reply to me etc...' The sender threatened to e-mail the picture and the files to many users in the UAE.
"The matter astonished me because I don't have any enemies," said the victim.
A Dubai police captain who specialises in e-crime said: "We discovered that the suspect had hacked into the claimant's e-mail. We tracked him down from the IP address. He accessed her private files and pictures."
The court reconvenes soon.
