Dutch probing Iranian hacker's claims

The Dutch government is investigating claims by a suspected Iranian hacker that he falsified Internet security certificates at a Dutch company, a government spokesman said Friday.

"We are investigating all leads including the lead of today," Dutch Safety and Justice Ministry spokesman Edmond Messchaert told AFP, referring to an interview published on Dutch public broadcaster NOS's website.

In the interview, a hacker claiming to be a 21-year-old Iranian student identified only by the name "Sun Ich", said he was responsible for the breach at DigiNotar, through which some 531 Internet security certificates were falsified in July.

The false Internet security certificates, also known as SSLs, were then used in an apparent attempt to snoop on Google users in Iran.

"I carried out the hack completely on my own, from start to end," Sun Ich was quoted as saying. "When I got the certificates I brought certain people in Iran up to speed. It looks like they then used the information."

The Dutch secret service this week opened an investigation to determine who falsified the SSLs, the Dutch government said Tuesday.

The probe was launched a day after Internet security specialist company Fox-IT said hackers had falsified hundreds of Internet security certificates through DigiNotar.

The hacker told journalists he was a supporter of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government and decided to target the Netherlands to punish it for the "fall of Srebrenica" and anti-Islam statements by Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders.

A contingent of Dutch soldiers serving with the United Nations were charged with protecting civilians in the "safe" enclave of Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in 1995, but were humiliatingly overrun by Bosnian Serb forces under Ratko Mladic.

The following day, thousands of Bosnian Muslim men were captured or surrendered before almost 8,000 were executed in the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

Politician Wilders was acquitted by a Dutch court in June on hate speech and discrimination charges for attacking Islam, including comparing the Koran to Hitler's "Mein Kampf".

(c) 2011 AFP