London: Britain`s watchdog body investigating police malpractice has reportedly been targeted by computer hackers stealing information for private investigators.
According to the Telegraph, detectives are investigating claims that hackers used bogus e-mail addresses similar to ones used by officials from Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) to plant computer viruses which enabled them to access confidential files.
The hackers are believed to have used addresses, which had slight misspellings of real officials` names.
The targeted recipients would then open the e-mail, believing that the message was from someone they recognized. That would release the Trojan virus onto their computer without raising suspicion.
The report also said that one of the bogus e-mail addresses being examined by detectives is similar to the one used by the IPCC`s former director of communications Racheal Collins.
The bogus e-mails were apparently sent in the name ``Rachael Collin``.
The details of the fake address have been passed on to detectives investigating allegations that private detectives were involved in computer hacking.
A spokesman for the IPCC, however, said that the commission had no knowledge of the hacking claims.
ANI
