Nidhi Razdan says Harvard University offer fake, result of 'sophisticated, coordinated' phishing attack

Former NDTV journalist Nidhi Razdan on Friday said that she has been the victim of a "sophisticated and coordinated phishing attack" that lead her to believe she was offered a teaching position at Harvard University. The offer, she confirmed, was never extended by the prestigious varsity and she had fallen prey to a sophisticated scam.In June 2020, Razdan left NDTV saying that she had been offered the post of associate professor of journalism at the Ivy League university.Razdan, who worked as a television journalist for over two decades, tweeted on Friday that she noticed "a number of administrative anomalies" after her posting was delayed from September 2020 to January 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic."At first, I had dismissed these anomalies as being reflective of the new normal being dictated by the pandemic, but recently the representations being made to me were of an even more disquieting nature."As a result, I reached out to senior authorities at Harvard University for clarity. Upon their request, I shared some of the correspondence that I had believed I had received from the university," she said in the statement.Stating that the entire episode was the result of a phishing attack and that the university had not extended the offer, she said, "The perpetrators of this attack used clever forgeries and misrepresentations to obtain access to my personal data and communications and may have also gained access to my devices and my email/social media accounts."She added that she has filed a police complaint and provided the documentary evidence. "I have requested them to take immediate steps to identify, apprehend, and prosecute the perpetrators of this abominable attack."Razdan said that she has also written to the Harvard University about the matter and "urged them to take it seriously".Several Indian journalists and authors like Saba Naqvi and Aparna Jain extended support to Razdan and tweeted that the culprits should be caught as soon as possible.