Security News > 2023 > November > Dutch hacker jailed for extortion, selling stolen data on RaidForums
A former Dutch cybersecurity professional was sentenced to four years in prison after being found guilty of hacking and blackmailing more than a dozen companies in the Netherlands and worldwide.
The suspect, a 21-year-old man from Zandvoort named Pepijn Van der Stap, has been convicted on multiple charges, including hacking into victims' computers, extortion, and laundering at least 2.5 million euros in cryptocurrency.
When searching his computer, law enforcement agents found various malicious tools and personal information stolen from millions of individuals, acquired through hacking, purchases, or exchanges with other cyber criminals, and put up for sale on various hacking forums.
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service also revealed that Van der Stap helped other criminals by selling or trading this stolen sensitive data, causing millions in damages to the affected organizations.
Both were considered the biggest hacking forums before their seizure, with hundreds of thousands of users employing them as online platforms for trading and selling stolen databases.
"The majority of my criminal hacking activities took place before I started doing lawful work. I had already started cutting back on blackhat hacking before I started working for whitehat entities. Once I began working in legitimate jobs, I really started dedicating my skills to ethical purposes," Van der Stap told DataBreaches.net in an interview.