Stories by Loek Essers

Spamhaus DDoS suspect extradited to the Netherlands

By Loek Essers | 08 May, 2013 15:56

A 35-year-old Dutchman suspected of participating in a large DDoS attack on antispam organization Spamhaus was extradited from Spain to the Netherlands on Monday evening, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service said Wednesday.

Apple's privacy policy violates German data protection law, Berlin court rules

By Loek Essers | 07 May, 2013 15:10

Apple violates German data protection law by asking for users' broad, overall consent in its privacy policy, the Regional Court of Berlin ruled.

Systems manager arrested for hacking former employer's network

By Loek Essers | 03 May, 2013 10:24

A 41-year-old man was arrested for allegedly disrupting his former employer's network after he was passed over for promotions, leading him to quit his job and take revenge, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said.

Dutch bill seeks to give law enforcement hacking powers

By Loek Essers | 02 May, 2013 10:47

The Dutch government today presented a draft bill that aims to give law enforcement the power to hack into computer systems -- including those located in foreign countires -- to do research, gather and copy evidence or block access to certain data.

Germans fine Google for gathering personal data with Street View cars

By Loek Essers | 22 April, 2013 11:12

Google must pay a €145,000 (US$190,000) fine in Germany for gathering and storing emails, photos, passwords and chat protocols from unprotected Wi-Fi networks with Google Street View cars, Hamburg's Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information said on Monday.

Pirate Bay co-founder charged with hacking IBM mainframes, stealing money

By Loek Essers | 16 April, 2013 16:02

Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg was charged with hacking the IBM mainframe of Logica, a Swedish IT firm that provided tax services to the Swedish government, and the IBM mainframe of the Swedish Nordea bank, according to the Swedish public prosecutor.

Find My Mac both useful and frustrating for law enforcement

By Loek Essers | 15 April, 2013 15:10

Find My Mac can be used to show the location of a stolen Mac, but the service often does not provide enough evidence to obtain a search warrant and get the stolen device back to its rightful owner, the Dutch police said on Monday.

Hackers could start abusing electric car chargers to cripple the grid, researcher says

By Loek Essers | 11 April, 2013 15:07

Hackers could use vulnerable charging stations to prevent the charging of electric vehicles in a certain area, or possibly even use the vulnerabilities to cripple parts of the electricity grid, a security researcher said during the Hack in the Box conference in Amsterdam on Thursday.

Hackers turn a Canon EOS camera into a remote surveillance tool

By Loek Essers | 10 April, 2013 13:29

The high-end Canon EOS-1D X camera can be hacked for use as a remote surveillance tool, with images remotely downloaded, erased and uploaded, a researcher said during the Hack in the Box security conference in Amsterdam on Wednesday.

Hackers can cause traffic jams by manipulating real-time traffic data, researcher says

By Loek Essers | 15 March, 2013 13:57

Hackers can influence real-time traffic-flow-analysis systems to make people drive into traffic jams or to keep roads clear in areas where a lot of people use Google or Waze navigation systems, a German researcher demonstrated at BlackHat Europe.

Mobile enterprise management tools are targeted by spyphones, researchers warn

By Loek Essers | 14 March, 2013 16:01

Enterprises that use mobile device management (MDM) systems to protect their corporate data on employees' mobile phones are not safe from attacks from spyphones, researchers warned at BlackHat Europe on Thursday.

EU privacy taskforce plans to take action against Google before the summer

By Loek Essers | 28 February, 2013 14:07

European privacy authorities approved a plan to come up with measures to curb Google's collection, combination and storage of its users' personal information before the summer.

Apple, BlackBerry, others sued over security patents

By Loek Essers | 27 February, 2013 14:27

Security company Maz Encryption Technologies sued seven large technology companies for allegedly infringing on several of its security patents. The suits target security technology used in the iPhone and iPad as well as the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution, among other products.

Facebook can stick with its real name policy for now, German court rules

By Loek Essers | 15 February, 2013 11:36

Facebook can stick with its real name policy in Germany, and doesn't have to allow nicknames on its platform for now. The regulator that ordered Facebook to change it policy based its orders on inapplicable German law, a German court ruled.

Facebook deleted all EU facial recognition data, regulators confirm

By Loek Essers | 07 February, 2013 14:50

Facebook has deleted all European facial recognition data, the Irish data protection commissioner and a German data protection regulator confirmed independently Thursday after reviewing parts of the social network's source code.

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Security Awareness Tip

Incident handling is a vast topic, but here are a few tips for you to consider in your incident response. I hope you never have to use them, but the odds are at some point you will and I hope being ready saves you pain (or your job!).


  1. Have an incident response plan.

  2. Pre-define your incident response team 

  3. Define your approach: watch and learn or contain and recover.

  4. Pre-distribute call cards.

  5. Forensic and incident response data capture.

  6. Get your users on-side.

  7. Know how to report crimes and engage law enforcement. 

  8. Practice makes perfect.

For the full breakdown on this article

Security ABC Guides

Warning: Tips for secure mobile holiday shopping

I’m dating myself, but I remember when holiday shopping involved pouring through ads in the Sunday paper, placing actual phone calls from tethered land lines to research product stock and availability, and actually driving places to pick things up. Now, holiday shoppers can do all of that from a smartphone or tablet in a few seconds, but there are some security pitfalls to be aware of.