Thursday, July 3, 2008
A hacker thought to be responsible for a slew of network security attacks has been arrested by Dutch authorities.
National newpaper NRC Handlesblad originally reported that the 20-year-old hacker had been caught by the Team High Tech Crime squad last week.
IT Examiner reported that he is thought to be behind crimes totalling millions of dollars.
These included compromising network security and stealing data from two online games servers, as well as lifting payment data from thousands of users of an English online ticket website.
He is then reported to have spent €13 million ($20.5 million) on online gaming sites and computer hardware.
Calling himself MaddoxX, the hacker is also charged with stealing the code of a game being developed by Activision which, if released prior to its launch date, would have cost the company $25 million.
Back in April 2007, the hacker is said to have contacted the Register to explain his reasoning behind one of his crimes.
"It is just to show how lax they are with their security," he said.
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