Suspect arrested for cyber attacks on Dutch tax service; Bunq
The police arrested an 18-year-old man from Oosterhout in connection with multiple DDoS attacks on the Tax Authority, tech site Tweakers and internet provider Tweak last week, as well as on online bank Bunq in September last year. The man was arrested on Thursday, February 1st, the police said in a statement on Monday.
In a DDoS attack large amounts of data is sent to the targeted site, overloading the site's server and thereby crashing the site.
The police worked closely with Tweakers and security company Redsocks in this investigation. "With this arrest we show that people who commit DDoS attacks do not go unpunished. Investigation must show whether he acted alone or not", Gert Ras, head of the police's High Tech Crime team, said. The police are also investigating whether this man is linked to other DDoS attacks on Dutch banks last week. ABN Amro, ING and Rabobank were all hit by multiple attacks.
Redsocks has indication that the man was also behind the attacks on ING and ABN Amro, investigator Ricky Gevers said to NOS. "We shared information about this with the police."
Tweakers reports that the the tech site tracked down the Oosterhout man after he claimed responsibility for several DDoS attacks online. "The suspect claims that he bought 40 euros of capacity from a 'stresser', an online service that can be used by companies to test their DDoS resistance, but can just as easily be used for an actual DDoS." Tweakers writes. The suspect hid his identity with a so-called VPN connection, but based on IP addresses Tweakers found out that he had a Tweakers account. The tech site handed over his account details to the police on Thursday, and the police arrested him later that day.
The police also searched the suspect's home and confiscated his computer and other data carriers for further investigation. The suspect will be arraigned on Tuesday.
