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Dutch Developer Added Backdoor To Websites He Built, Phished Over 20,000 Users (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the bolting-to-the-door dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: A Dutch developer illegally accessed the accounts of over 20,000 users after he allegedly collected their login information via backdoors installed on websites he built. According to an official statement, Dutch police officials are now in the process of notifying these victims about the crook's actions. The hacker, yet to be named by Dutch authorities, was arrested on July 11, 2016, at a hotel in Zwolle, the Netherlands, and police proceeded to raid two houses the crook owned, in Leeuwarden and Sneek. According to Dutch police, the 35-years-old suspect was hired to build e-commerce sites for various companies. After doing his job, the developer also left backdoors in those websites, which he used to install various scripts that allowed him to collect information on the site's users. Police say that it's impossible to determine the full breadth of his hacking campaign, but evidence found on his laptop revealed he gained access to over 20,000 email accounts. Authorities say the hacker used his access to these accounts to read people's private email conversations, access their social media profiles, sign-up for gambling sites with the victim's credentials, and access online shopping sites to make purchases for himself using the victim's funds.

3 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Why not name him? by haruchai · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He's been in custody for over 6 months and is not a minor so why keep his name a secret?

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    1. Re: Why not name him? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Because he's not yet been found guilty, and some cultures take a more enlightened approach than others when it comes to destroying potentially innocent lives via the judicial system.

      Think he'd ever find work again, if found not guilty, but named all over Google anyway?

    2. Re:Why not name him? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Considering the US has the highest recidivism rate, around 76%, in the world, the EU countries by definition are doing better. Norway, as an example, has the lowest recidivism rate, around 20%, in the world.

      Hey! We pour the most money into our prison system, so it must be the best.

      Sad to say, the get tough on crime crowd in conjunction with the war on drugs, has turned the US Prison system into insanity. Then there is the aspect of money, which in some cases gets you three months for sexual assault rape, http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/02/... versus getting 50 years for stealing a rack of ribs. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

      And yet, the people who think that what amounts to a life sentence for stealing food is a fine idea, almost universally don't want to pay for that incarceration.

      We're Kookoo for Cocoa-Puffs some times.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.