 |
Police in the Netherlands
are contacting more than 20,000 people who they suspect had their data stolen
by a rogue web developer. They say the man coded a backdoor into the sites he
built for businesses, to harvest their customers' data.
He then used the
credentials to make online purchases, open gambling accounts and impersonate
victims' family members, police allege. Credentials for more than 20,000 people
were found on the suspect's computer.
"He has worked for
various companies building websites with online shopping functionality,"
police said in a statement in October, when they first revealed their
investigation.
"It is suspected
that he was able to capture usernames and passwords by installing a special
script." The 35-year-old suspect was arrested last July and the
investigation is continuing.
The police have emailed
the people whose contact information was found on the suspect's computer,
encouraging them to change their online passwords. They said it was not
possible to identify whether all the credentials had been abused.
However, the force has
also warned that opportunistic scammers are impersonating the police and are
sending out rogue attachments. The genuine email from the Dutch police did not
have an attachment.
"Never download
files in emails if you do not know the sender," the police force advised.
Source: BBC
0 comments:
Post a Comment