Five detained in KPN, Ziggo DDOS cyberattack

Four underage boys and one man were arrested for cyberattacks on the internet service providers Ziggo and KPN. The five were interrogated by the police department’s High Tech Crime Team (THTC) throughout Tuesday following the arrest for Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks on both companies.

All suspects were released Tuesday night after questioning.

Two attacks on Ziggo in August left internet and email users without services for days, affecting a recorded 1.8 million of the company's customers, including hospitals and medical facilities. Ziggo previously said they would not be refunding customers for their time without service.

The quintet is also accused of posting videos that threatened DDoS attacks against both KPN and Ziggo, although they tried to remain unidentifiable in the video threat. Journalists at the NL Times viewed the videos at the time of the attacks on YouTube. At the time of the cyberattacks, videos surfaced online claiming responsibility, and an allegiance to hacktivist collective Anonymous.

Police reported that their impression was that “The boys wanted to show that they were capable of great things.”

The three youths aged between 14 and 17 years and the 21-year-old man hail from the Gelderland towns of Berkelland and Lochem, the Noord-Holland municipalities Den Helder and Schoorl, and Vinkeveen in Utrecht. Their computers, mobile phones, external hard drives and USB memory sticks were all seized from their families’ homes.

The prosecutor assigned to the case decided they will wait to proceed further until investigators conclude their analysis.

Police and the Public Prosecutor have urged that this is not a game and carries a criminal prosecution with up to 10 years imprisonment and the possibility of financial compensation for the damage done.