Anyone who spends time online is usually sick to death of the scam artists. People who send spam emails, bots to try to access your website, or contact you asking you to help them transfer money from their bank account in Nigeria. That’s why, when something like today’s news happens — a Dutch man was arrested in Spain for a cyber attack against Spamhaus — most of us are ecstatically happy.
The Dutch man arrested in Spain for a cyber attack against Spamhaus apparently drove around in his van to various internet hotspots around the country and then launched his attack. The attack lasted several weeks and was so large police are now saying it was the biggest cyber attack in internet history.
According to Reuters, the man, who has only been named as ‘S.K’, was arrested in Granollers just a couple of hours north of Barcelona. When he was captured he was discovered to have a van completely kitted out with top-of-the-line computers and cell phones that he used against Spamhaus.
There’s no word yet on his motive but, as Spamhaus is a leading internet publisher of blacklists to help weed out spam IPs, it’s probably a safe bet that he’s either been targeted by Spamhaus in the past or he was about to set up a massive spam operation and wanted to shut down the main company that could stop him.
Not only is his capture good news for Spamhaus, who had been experiencing Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks for more than a month that were shutting down their websites, it’s also great news for the rest of us. This fool’s attacks were apparently so large they were responsible for a slow down of internet speed worldwide. Now he’s been captured, we should also see an improvement in the internet service we use, in Spain and everywhere else. I for one am happy.
Meanwhile, in a public statement, Spamhaus has congratulated Spanish police (Catalan branch) and all the Dutch law enforcement operations involved in the arrest. The organization also said it will continue its fight against spam, malware, botnets and any other cyber attacks that make the internet a less safe place to be.