Didn't get Harvard offer, fell for phishing: Journalist Nidhi Razdan

A dangerous form of cyber attack, phishing often times deploys emails as a weapon. Perpetrators trick the victim into believing that the message is important and they click a malicious link.

This can lead to sensitive information, including details of banks, social media accounts, etc., landing in the wrong hands.

Put simply, it is a way to trick the unsuspecting users.

Taking to her Twitter account today afternoon, Razdan revealed something similar happened to her.

In June 2020, Razdan left NDTV after 21 years for her new stint, believing that she indeed would be an Associate Professor at the established university soon.

The job was supposed to start in September but was pushed to January 2021, in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

Initially, said the journalist, she didn't pay heed to the "administrative anomalies as being the new reflective of the new normal being dictated by the pandemic." However, the "disquieting nature" of the recent representations concerned her.

Thereafter, she spoke to Harvard's senior authorities.

"Upon their request, I shared some of the correspondence that I believed I have received from the [Harvard] University," she wrote.

After speaking with authorities, she learned of the hoax.

"I did not, in fact, receive an offer by Harvard University to join their faculty as an Associate Professor of Journalism. 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 wrote.