An arrest in response to March DDoS attacks on Spamhaus

The Spamhaus Project offers congratulations and its sincere thanks to the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM), the Dutch National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) of the Dutch Police Services Agency (KLPD), the Spanish National Police (Catalonia branch in collaboration with the Central UDEF), and any and all other entities involved in the recent arrest announced in regard to the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on Spamhaus in March 2013.

The record-breaking attacks were initially directed at Spamhaus infrastructure such as websites, mailservers and nameservers. Then, over the course of the following two weeks, the attacks escalated to targeting Spamhaus' supporting networks and services including various Internet exchanges. While the DDoS caused disruptions to our organization and its hosts and partners, the flow of the Spamhaus anti-spam data that protects over 1.7 billion mailboxes worldwide was never interrupted.

Spamhaus will resolutely continue its mission to provide reliable protection against cyber threats such as spam, malware and botnets and work with Internet service providers and organizations worldwide to create a safer internet.

Further reading:

• The full press release of the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (in Dutch) - English translation* The full press release of the Spanish Interior Ministry (in Spanish) - English translation* Dutchman Arrested in Spamhaus DDoS (@krebsonsecurity.com)

• Groep dreigt met 'grootste aanval ooit' om arrestatie hacker (@nu.nl in Dutch) - English translation* Dutch Suspect Arrested for Biggest Cyber Attack in Internet History (@ibtimes.co.uk)

• Dutchman arrested over huge web attack (@bbc.co.uk)

• Dutchman arrested in Spain for 'largest ever' Spamhaus cyber-attack (@rt.com)

• Dutch Authorities Nab Suspect In 'Unprecedented' Cyberattack (@npr.org)

• Dutch suspect arrested in massive March web attack (@techradar.com)

• Dutch suspect 'SK' arrested for Spamhaus cyber attack called internet's largest (@theverge.com)

• Police arrest suspect accused of “unprecedented” DDoS attack on Spamhaus (@arstechnica.com)

• Dutch suspect in huge cyberattack on anti-spam watchdog arrested in Spain (@washingtonpost.com)

• Man Arrested in Connection to Spamhaus DDoS Attacks (@thewhir.com)

• Suspect Arrested In Spamhaus DDoS Attack (@slashdot.org)

• Dutch Man Said to Be Held in Powerful Internet Attack (@nytimes.com)

• Spamhaus hacking suspect 'had mobile attack van' (@bbc.co.uk)

• Arrestatie Spamhaus DDoS verdachte in appartement Granollers Barcelona Spanje (@YouTube)

Update (8 May 2013):

• Suspected cyber attacks on Spamhaus surrendered to Netherlands (in Dutch) - English translation* Looking at the spamhaus DDOS from a BGP perspective