Dutch police systems hit in nationwide internet outage

Police systems across the country are offline due to a major failure, a spokesperson confirmed to NU.nl after reports in AD. This outage affects a number of police system, including the MEOS system used to issue digital fines and search license plate numbers.

The cause of the problem is unclear, but according to the police, this has nothing to do with a global ransomware attack on Tuesday. "We were not hacked. Our systems were not hacked", the spokesperson said to the newspaper.

The spokesperson added that just because the systems are down, doesn't mean violators won't be fined, they'll simply be given a handwritten ticket. "If a violation is made, you can definitely expect a fine."

The police took a number of precautionary measures against cyber attacks, which left parts of the police website unavailable on Wednesday.