Thursday, 25 April 2013 - 08:11
New Cyber Attack on DigiD
On Wednesday evening DigiD was once more the victim of a cyber attack. This was announced by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. According to the Ministry there is no sign of theft. Personal data have not been stolen and remain safe.
It is the second attack on DigiD in two days. Earlier on Tuesday evening there was a so-called DDos attack, an attack in which large quantities of data are sent to the server making the server unreachable.
The National Cyber Security Center has been appointed to investigate this case. So far it is not yet known who are the people behind these attacks.
In the last few weeks, various companies in Holland have been victims of DDos attacks. Most were banks. ING was one of the banks which was seriously attacked and KLM also encountered an internet disturbance by a DDos attack.
With a DigiD the government can monitor the identity of a citizen. With a DigiD citizens can perform tasks or inquire for certain data not only from about 500 organizations like the IRS and the Registry of Deeds but also from municipal offices and provincial offices.
After banks were attacked, some of their clients received letters supposedly from the banks. These letters asked for personal data like banking data. It is not known if the senders of the letters are the same people as the people behind the cyber attacks.
The Ministry warns that usually the organizations with whom one can use the DigiD will never ask for such data.