Thaindian News

AMSTERDAM (BNO NEWS) — Dutch police on Saturday morning arrested a second teenager in relation to pro-WikiLeaks cyber attacks earlier this week, prosecutors said.

The Netherlands’ prosecutor’s office said the Team High Tech Crime of the National Police Services Agency arrested a 19-year-old man in the municipality of Hoogezand-Sappemeer in northeastern the Netherlands. He is suspected of being involved in several pro-WikiLeaks cyber attacks.

On Friday, the websites of Dutch police and the country’s prosecutor’s office came under attack in retaliation over the arrest of a 16-year-old Dutch teenager who was involved in the pro-WikiLeaks cyber attacks on Visa and MasterCard.

The prosecutor’s office website and the website of Dutch police went offline for several hours, although authorities said the sites contained only public information and no sensitive data.

“From behind his computer, the man used hacker software to flood the website of the prosecutor’s office with as much digital traffic as possible,” prosecutors said on Saturday. “Investigations by the National Police Services Agency showed that the man, who was active under the internet nickname Awinee, urged other Internet users to participate in the attack.”

The prosecutor’s office said the man was using software which also sends the IP-address of his computer, making it easy for authorities to track him down. “The attack software which is being used by WikiLeaks supporters always sends the IP-addresses of attackers. Participating in such DDoS-attacks is illegal,” the office said, warning that there is a maximum prison sentence of six years for the offense.

In addition to participating in the attack on the Dutch prosecutor’s office website, the man is also suspected of being involved in the cyber attack on the website Moneybookers.com. A computer and a replica of an Italian gun were seized during Saturday’s arrest.