A Dutch bank encountered a severe DDoS attack caused by a teenager frustrated of a monthly fee increase
Last week a Dutch mobile bank found itself battling to keep its app up and running in the face of a sustained DDoS attack. This week, the culprit was unmasked. Russian mobsters? North Korean officials? No, a local schoolboy who turned up to the Bunq office to confess and agreed to carry out community service in penitence.
In a message on its site, Bunq says that, after seeing off last week’s attack, it has been focusing on finding the perpetrator.
„Last week we worked round the clock to mitigate the effects of a severe DDoS-attack. Thanks to these efforts the impact was barely noticeable. The bunq app functioned nearly all of the time, card payments always went through, and your money was, of course, safe at all times.
Then we focused on finding the person responsible. As we got closer he decided to step forward himself. He, J., just visited our office to apologize for his actions. He is 18 and still in school. He apologized sincerely.
In spite of the many, many hours of work J. has caused us, we’ve decided not to press charges for it could result in one year of prison time along with hefty fines. Effectively destroying his life.
We think that is too much of a punishment for what is essentially a youthful sin. Instead we agreed he will do a week of community service for Amnesty International.”, according to the statement.
According to local publication RTLZ, J bought a botnet to carry out the attack in response to a recent move by Bunq to hike its monthly fees from EUR1 to EUR7.99 month.
Comments on the internet:
Finextra: „What apology did the bank offer for the 800% fee hike ? That’s the real crime here.”
Boudewijn: „Hire him at Bunq to work on your online security, to use his talents for the good!!”
John Do: „Talent? He just bought the whole ddos online.”
Remco: „Indeed. It’s no talent. It’s vandalism.”
Rupid: „What talent? If he was talented he wouldn’t get caught. Anyone can DDOS a company. It’s the most lamest of attacks in the world because it uses the most vulnerable part of the IP protocol.”
Arjan: „If you think this has ANYTHING to do with knowledge of security then your are increadible naive. This is like paying a hitman to kill someone. It takes only money, no courage neither skills. bunq let him go too easy.”
Bryan: „Honestly, that’s some amazing progressive thinking. The fact that you guys don’t want to press charges, even though the kid wanted to cause hiatus, is something more corporations should do.”
Anders Olofsson – former Head of Payments Finastra
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
