Logius preventively deleted 3,154 active DigiD accounts last month. The data from these accounts was traded on the illegal trading platform Genesis Market. All victims have been informed about this by letter.
Logius, which is part of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, reports this in a press statement.
International coalition takes Genesis Market offline
Genesis Market was one of the largest illegal trading platforms in the world for about five years. Hackers and cybercriminals could go here for bots, login details of individuals and companies, malware and digital fingerprints, among other things. The marketplace, which was accessible to both the regular internet and the dark web, has sold an estimated 135 million bots in its existence.
Cybersecurity experts claim that Genesis Market was a key link in conducting DDoS and ransomware attacks. The data offered for sale here was also used to commit identity fraud. It is estimated that the data of two million victims were traded via the platform, of which about 50,000 were Dutch.
In early April, Genesis Market was taken off the air in an international operation called Operation Cookie Monster. Police and investigative services from 17 countries, including the Netherlands, took part in this action. In our country, 23 homes were searched, and 17 suspects were arrested. Most of them are now free and await the case in freedom.
Police arrest’ largest Dutch user of Genesis Market’
Earlier this week, the police announced that they had arrested a 32-year-old man. He is described as the ‘biggest Dutch user of Genesis Market’. He lives in Brazil but was in Barendrecht earlier this month. Because he was in complete restraint, the police could not communicate about his arrest earlier.”We suspect that this man has spent tens of thousands of euros on the market and is, therefore, the largest Dutch user of the Genesis Market and may even be among the top ten largest users worldwide,” said Ruben van Well, team leader of the Genesis Market—Cybercrime team Rotterdam.
Victims have been notified in writing
Login details for DigiD were sold among the 50,000 Dutch victims. According to Logius, there are a total of 3,154 active DigiD accounts. The central government’s IT service provider says it has removed these accounts preventively to prevent potential abuse.
“Logius then sends the victim a letter by post. It states what happened, what the next steps are to be able to do business with the government safely again and a telephone number if anyone has any questions. These letters have now also been sent. A number of people have called Logius. They were positive about this action,” the company writes in a press statement.
The ICT service provider points out that anyone can use the Check je Hack tool to check whether their computer was infected with malware from Genesis Market. Since its launch at the beginning of April, more than 4.4 million Dutch people have used this tool. More than 11,800 people received an e-mail from the police that their computer was infected.