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Netherlands police’s high-tech crime unit has arrested an 18-year-old man on suspicion of launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the Dutch tax authority, tech site Tweakers, and internet service provider Tweak.
The police said the teenager, known only as ‘Jelle S’, is also suspected of attacking the online bank Bunq. There is as yet no official word on whether these attacks are tied to those on large Netherlands banks ABN Amro, Rabobank, and ING Bank.
However, security researchers believe it’s all down to the same individual. The large banks and the tax authority were all hit at the end of January, prompting a great deal of speculation over the identity of the attackers.
Many suggested that Russians were responsible, as the attacks came shortly after it emerged that Dutch intelligence had watched Russian hackers attack the Democratic Party in the US, in the run-up to the 2016 election.
Bunq was hit long before this recent wave of attacks — back in September, when the police began their investigation.
In a bizarre twist, it seems that an 18-year-old called J turned himself in to Bunq four months ago, and the startup decided to overlook his « youthful sin » on the condition that he did a week’s unpaid community work for Amnesty International.
To read the original article:http://www.zdnet.com/article/ddos-attacks-how-an-18-year-old-got-arrested-for-trying-to-knock-out-systems/
