The Dutch National Police (Politie) says it has found "strong indications" that Dutch hackers have been involved in a February breach at the telecommunications provider Odido.
"This includes a telephone conversation that was made with Odido customer service shortly before the hack. In this conversation, a Dutch-speaking man posed as Odido's IT employee. The company was then misled through phishing, after which the data theft took place," the police said in a Thursday press release.
"This type of investigation is often complex and takes time, but cybercriminals are also vulnerable and leave traces. Traces have been secured at several times during the investigation into the hack at Odido, which the research team continued to work on," added Stan Duijf, the head of operations at the National Investigation and Interventions Unit.
Odido is one of the largest Dutch telecommunications companies, offering mobile, broadband, and television services to millions of customers across the Netherlands.
When it disclosed the breach on February 12, the company said the attackers accessed its customer contact system on February 7 and downloaded the personal data of many of its users. It also told local media that the resulting data breach affected 6.2 million customers and that the threat actors reached out to say they had stolen millions of user records.
