Dutch police arrest 16-year-old in Wikileaks cyber attack probe
Thursday 09 December 2010
Dutch police have arrested a 16-year-old youth for hacking the Mastercard and Paypal websites, the public prosecution department said on Thursday evening.
A number of websites, including those of international credit card companies and the Swedish prosecution department were taken offline for a time after coordinated attacks by supporters of the Wikileaks website and its founder Julian Assange.
As soon as it became obvious the attack had been launched from the Netherlands, the national police squad’s High Tech Crime team began investigating, the prosecution department said in a statement.
According to the Telegraaf, the hackers used a server in Haarlem to launch the attack.
Court
The boy was identified yesterday, he was arrested and his computers and other equipment taken away for analysis, the department said. The youth, who has not been named, has admitted involvement in the attacks and will appear in court in Rotterdam on Friday.
The department says it is likely the boy, who is believed to come from The Hague, is part of a larger group of hackers and the investigation is continuing.
The Telegraaf states at the moment the police are only interested in people responsible for carrying out the attacks, not those who have simply allowed their computers to be used by hackers.
For the Wired report on this, click here
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They sure found the pro-wikileaks hackers fast … how long will it take to find the ones that were attacking wikileaks? Or is no one looking?
By Valentijn | December 9, 2010 7:54 PM
The Netherlands sure has some precocious freedom fighters. Must be the wall of corruption backing every government at the national and EU levels for the last 20 years that puts the spark in him.
Let’s hope he keeps his mouth shut and that Dutch state attorneys in this case show as much incompetence as the ones charged with prosecuting the wannabe tyrant Geert Wilders.
By Nal Bocks | December 9, 2010 8:16 PM
Wow. Have the cops nothing better to do than pick on a 16 yo kid? Actually, I’ve seen some videos on YouTube where dutch cops hit 14-15 yo kids during a student strike, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at all…
By My beautiful Jordaan | December 9, 2010 8:21 PM
Good work kid!
By Andrejs | December 10, 2010 9:16 AM
He will get a light slap on his little wrist and 40 hours of community service work, how much you want to bet? that’ll teach him!
By Bill | December 10, 2010 12:16 PM
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Article source: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/12/dutch_police_arrest_16yearold.php
Category: Cyber Crime
