14 DAY TRIAL // An 18-year-old Dutch man has been arrested in Rotterdam. Authorities believe he is responsible for several crimes, including hacking thousands of computers, unauthorized downloading, destroying files from a remote computer, and involvement in a child pornography case.
According to NL Times, the man’s name has not been revealed.
He’s said to have been involved in the theft and distribution of a French language test that students have to complete when they graduate secondary school.
It’s believed that he used someone else’s computer to publish digital copies online. The files were made public in May, one day before 17,000 students were supposed to take the test. Authorities were forced to postpone the exam.
The suspect will appear before a judge on January 16, 2014.
Update. The original article incorrectly stated that the suspect was a student at the Ibn Ghaldoun Islamic School in Rotterdam.
One of our readers from the Netherlands has been kind enough to provide us with some more information from local media.
The 18-year-old is said to have hacked into 2,000 websites, stealing a total of 43 million files. Allegedly, he also deleted and manipulated data on the victims' computers. Apparently, he wasn't motivated by profit, instead he did it for fun.
He has been in custody since October, but investigators have announced his arrest only now. The youth has utilized a Remote Access Trojan to gain control of the 2,000 devices.
The country’s National Cyber Security Centrum (NSCS) is offering users HitmanPro from SurfRight to check their computers for signs of infection.