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CYBER WARS
LulzSec hacker leader arrested in Australia
by Staff Writers
Sydney (AFP) April 24, 2013


Cyberattack deprives millions of Dutch of online ID
The Hague (AFP) April 24, 2013 - More than 10 million Dutch citizens were unable to use their official online signature to pay bills and taxes because of a cyberattack, officials said Wednesday.

The national DigiD system "is no longer accessible since Tuesday evening because of a DDoS attack," the interior ministry said in a statement.

DDoS or distributed denial of service attacks essentially disrupt sites by bombarding them with traffic.

Use of the DigiD system is widespread in the Netherlands, where more than 10 million people out of a population of 17 million rely on it, ministry spokesman Frank Wassenaar told AFP.

DigiD users' personal details are not under threat, the ministry said.

"It's as if the alarm is constantly going off and the door remains closed," the minister said.

"The thieves thankfully stay outside but unfortunately so also do normal visitors."

DigiD is a secure system for citizens to identify themselves electronically, consisting of a username and password.

The system is used in the Netherlands to pay taxes, bills, change address or request official papers.

The Dutch police's cybercrime unit is probing the attack, the ministry said.

Several Dutch banks and airline KLM have been hit by DDoS attacks in recent weeks, rendering websites and online banking services inaccessible for several hours at a time.

A self-proclaimed leader of the LulzSec international hacking group has been arrested in Australia, police said on Wednesday, after charging him with attacking and defacing a government website.

The 24-year-old IT professional, who went by the online identity "ozshock", was seized at his office in a town 76 kilometres (47 miles) north of Sydney on Tuesday.

"The man is a self-proclaimed leader of the group Lulz Security (LulzSec), a computer hacking group that has existed since 2011," the Australian Federal Police said, adding that he was known to international police forces.

"It will be alleged that this person, known by the online identity ozshock, had gained unauthorised access and caused data impairment to a government website during this month."

LulzSec, an offshoot of the larger group Anonymous, has claimed responsibility for multiple cyber attacks, including against Sony Pictures, Rupert Murdoch's News International, and the CIA.

Police called the man, who has not been named, "a well-respected person within the Anonymous community, within LulzSec".

They added that he was employed "in a position of trust" at the company he worked for, although that company had no knowledge of his activities.

Australian Federal Police Cyber Crimes Commander Glen McEwen said the man's job gave him access to sensitive information, which allowed him to carry out the attack on the unnamed website.

"Police believe this man's skill sets and access to this type of information presented a considerable risk to Australian society," he told reporters.

"Our early intervention interrupted him before he could commit any further serious offences.

"But the ability to interrupt online trading, online transactions for governments, can have serious consequences in the long-term."

He has been charged with two counts of unauthorised modification of data to cause impairment and one count of unauthorised access to a restricted computer system and faces a maximum of 12 years in jail.

The man was released on bail and will face court in May.

Cyber attacks that LulzSec has taken credit for include an extensive breach of Sony Pictures computer system in 2011, which led to the personal data of thousands of Sony customers being posted online.

American Cody Kretsinger pleaded guilty to various charges related to that incident and was sentenced to one year in jail last week.

Last year, two British members of the group admitted carrying out attacks against the CIA and News International.

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China and Romania were by far the largest sources of confirmed hacking attempts last year, with China's mostly from state-controlled sources aimed at data theft, a new report said Tuesday. Verizon's 2013 Data Breach Investigations report said 30 percent of 621 confirmed attacks were sourced back to China, 28 percent to Romania, and another 18 percent to the United States. By far most of ... read more


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