Police arrest Dutch hacker for stealing online data
AMSTERDAM: Dutch investigators arrested a man accused of stealing and selling the personal data of millions of people around the world, including almost every person living in Austria.
The 25-year-old Dutch man was arrested in November following a tip from the Austrian Federal Criminal Police Office. The case was only made public by the prosecutor’s office in Amsterdam on Wednesday, the German Press Agency (dpa) reported.
According to the information, there are strong indications that the suspect has offered stolen confidential data including patient medical record data.
The data is said to involve residents from the Netherlands, Austria, Thailand, Colombia, China and Britain.
Austrian police have reportedly been investigating intensively for more than two years after stolen records worth millions of people from Austria were offered for sale on an illegal forum in May 2020.
They finally found the man’s home address in Amsterdam.
According to the report, during searches of homes in Amsterdam and Almere, north of the capital, a large amount of equipment and software that could be used to hack computer files was also seized.
The criminal platform has since been closed.
According to information from the Austrian authorities, the nine million registration data records found involve Austria alone.
The country has about nine million citizens and the hacked records include full name, gender, complete address and date of birth, possibly involving the records of all residents of the country.
