Teen suspected of DDoS attacks on Dutch financial services wanted to prove a point

An 18-year-old Oosterhout man arrested in connection with DDoS attacks on Dutch financial institutions, wanted "to show that a teenager can simply crash all banks with a relatively simple attack", suspect Jelle S. wrote in an email to the Volkskrant shorty before his arrest.

The newspaper received an email from someone claiming to be behind the DDoS attacks on various banks and the Tax Authority last week. When the newspaper asked him why he committed these cyber attacks, he answered "because it is funny". "People in panic, everyone pointing to the Russians. Much media attention, enough reason to do it", he said in an email.

The Volkskrant received this email on January 31st. The newspaper did not write about the correspondence immediately, because it was not yet certain that Jelle S. was actually responsible for the attacks. Until the police announced that an 18-year-old from Oosterhout was arrested.

S. was arraigned on Tuesday and remanded into custody for two weeks. The police linked him to DDoS attacks on the Dutch Tax Authority,  tech site Tweakers and internet provider Tweak last week, as well as on online bank Bunq in September last year. They are still investigating whether he was also involved in attacks on ABN Amro, ING and Rabobank. 

In a DDoS attack large amounts of data is sent to the targeted site, overloading the site's server and thereby crashing the site.