A man in his twenties was arrested on Tuesday at his home in the Namur region, as part of an investigation into computer crime, the federal police said in a statement on Wednesday. The individual is suspected of having launched, or permitted to launch, computer attacks once morest various interests in Belgium and abroad.
In July 2019 in the United Kingdom, an investigation is opened on a site which resells a large number of stolen passwords and usernames. The Netherlands opened an investigation in turn a few months later, given the involvement of one of their residents in the disputed site.
At the beginning of 2020, despite the seizure by the FBI of the offending domain name, a spin-off of the site was put online three days later. This time the servers are hosted in the Netherlands. During their investigation, the Netherlands noted the existence of two servers, one from which “clients” might launch requests by denial of service (making it impossible to use a website by launching millions requests at the same second, which paralyzes the site).
Belgian suspect surfaces
In May 2021, following several months of in-depth police work, the investigation turned to a suspect residing in Belgium. The man had already been auditioned for similar facts.
He was finally arrested on Tuesday in the Namur region. Three simultaneous searches led to the seizure of various materials, including computers. The action was carried out by the FCCU (Federal Computer Crime Unit) of the Federal Judicial Police, in collaboration with the FBI and the Dutch police authorities.
The federal police take the opportunity to call for reinforcement of the staff of these highly specialized units and their equipment. “This file, which adds to the cyberattacks known in recent weeks, shows that this criminal phenomenon must be taken seriously.“.