Threat Management, Threat Management

Four teens, adult arrested for Ziggo DDoS attacks

Four teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 and a 21-year old man are still considered suspects in connection with two major August distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against Dutch internet provider Ziggo after
authorities in the Netherlands arrested, questioned and released them Tuesday.

The cyber attacks left many of the company's 1.8 million customers without internet access for several days, according to DutchNews.nl. The internet provider said at the time that it would not refund customers for the outage because, the NLtimes.nl quoted a Ziggo spokesperson as saying, "it was a special situation. We were digitally attacked and received demands through videos. So there was talk of blackmail.”

Acknowledging the impact of the attacks on customers, the spokesperson explained that "financial compensation on the basis of blackmail is not appropriate.”

The five who were arrested allegedly posted YouTube videos of themselves making demands and threatening more attacks, including one that may have been against the Dutch telecommunications company KPN, according to the report.

The public prosecution department in a Wednesday statement, said it appeared that the young attackers "wanted to show they were capable of having a major effect such as taking down an internet provider."

They were questioned by the police's High Tech Crime Team (THTC) Tuesday before being released, NLTimes.nl reported Wednesday. Authorities confiscated phones, computers, hard drives, and USB drives from the suspects' homes. A prosecutor will proceed with the case after an investigation is completed.

Get daily email updates

SC Media's daily must-read of the most current and pressing daily news

By clicking the Subscribe button below, you agree to SC Media Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.