hacker

Hackers that infected Maastricht University's network with ransomware were in the network for over two months before they attacked, was revealed in the forensic investigation into the attack. "They first mapped out the network in order to be able to roll out the ransomware as well as possible," security expert Frank Groenenweg of Fox-IT, who was involved in the investigation, said to NOS.

Philips was one of multiple global companies affected by a major espionage campaign by Chinese hackers, The Wall Street Journal reported. The espionage, called Operation Cloud Hopper, was discovered in 2016 and security researchers believe the hackers have links with the Chinese government.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the hackers managed to steal medical research data from Philips. The company said that measurers have been taken and that no patient data had been stolen.

The account details of the 250 thousand users of Dutch website Hookers.nl have leaked out after a vulnerability on the website was exploited. A hacker captured the members' data and is offering it for sale, NOS reports based on its own research after an anonymous tip. The website is popular among clients of sex workers, who exchange tips, reviews and experiences in the sex industry. 

The problem extends beyond clients of sex workers. Sex workers themselves are also active on the website. They also may want to not be known as a sex worker with their real names. 

Dutch military intelligence service MIVD prevented a hacking operation by Russian secret service G.U. aimed at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPWC), Minister Ank Bijleveld of Defense announced at a press conference in The Hague on Thursday. The G.U. tried to hack the OPWC on April 13th. Four involved Russian officers were deported from the Netherlands that same day, NOS reports.

Rabobank and ABN Amro were targeted by DDoS attacks on Thursday night and Friday morning. As a result their online and mobile banking, iDeal payments and websites were hard to reach or completely offline for several hours.

The attacks on Rabobank started around 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, NOS reports. The problems were resolved shortly before midnight. ABN Amro was attacked during the early hours of Friday morning.

In a DDoS attack a website is bombarded by large amounts of data, crashing its server and therefore also the site. 

The National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) made sure all Dutch government organizations are aware of a warning issued by the American and British security services about Russian state hackers targeting network equipment. The NCSC, which falls under the Ministry of Justice and Security, takes this warning seriously and advises all Dutch organizations to check their network equipment for erroneous configurations, NU.nl reports.

The software that will be used to count votes in the upcoming municipal elections is still not safe. Hackers can use the vulnerable software to influence the election results, experts that examined the software told RTL Nieuws.

Ethical hacker Sijmen Ruwhof discovered more than 50 vulnerabilities in the software. He calls ten of them 'high risk'. 

Foundation Halt and the Public Prosecution Service together launched an experiment in which young criminal hackers are sent to work at an ICT company as part of their punishment. The first trial run of this experiment, called Yoda after the Star Wars character, has already been completed in collaboration with three ICT companies in the northern provinces, the Prosecutor said in a statement. 

The police are looking for a 47-year-old man from Boxtel, who is suspected of stealing some 500 thousand euros by hacking into a Belgian company's email account, the police said in a statement on Wednesday. The man is on the run. On Wednesday the police searched his home, and the homes of his family members in Boxtel. Data carriers, computers and admin were seized.

Olivier Beg gets to fly with United Airlines almost for free for the coming time. The 19-year-old from Amsterdam was given a million air miles for identifying some 20 security patches by hacking the airline

A company inspector working at the Jumbo supermarket chain has to pay 30 thousand euros in compensation for hacking into nearly 100 corporate laptops.