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Picture: Wikimedia Commons/Chris Roberts
Tuesday, 14 October 2014 - 16:12
Over 5500 .nl domains, 1.3m email addresses hacked
A list in the possession of the National Security Center (NCSC) shows that 1.3 million email addresses that end in .nl were among the 1.2 billion log in details that were hacked this past summer. Email addresses of the Ministry of Defense also appear on the list.
The NCSC, which is part of the Ministry of Security and Justice, received the details from the company Hold Security, who reported the hack in August. This is known as the biggest hack to date. Hackers managed to hack 420 thousand websites and subsequently stole email addresses, usernames and passwords. Since many people often use the same log in details for various online services, people whose details were stolen run a big risk.
The NCSC contacted the internet service providers who host the Dutch email addresses. They will inform affected users that they have been victims of hacking. "People in possession of an email address ending in .nl who received no information from their provider, can generally assume that their email address is not part of this dataset." the NCSC writes.
The NCSC also received a list of 5,600 Dutch websites that may still be vulnerable to attackers. The owners of those websites were informed via the Foundation for Internet Domain Registration Netherlands, which has control of domain names ending in .nl.