Cell demanded for hack at festival organizer ID&T, ‘not a bad boy’s trick’

In association with

RTV East

NOS News•yesterday, 8:33 PM

A 28-year-old Amsterdam resident has been sentenced to fifteen months in prison for a hack. According to the Public Prosecution Service, the man broke into the system of entertainment company ID&T online. As a result, private data of hundreds of thousands of festival goers, employees and artists ended up on the street.

“There was absolutely no mischief here,” says the public prosecutor. The Public Prosecution Service blames the man heavily for not warning the companies about the vulnerabilities in their system. Instead, he “wanted to study his loot in peace.”

The suspect acknowledges that he penetrated the NextSelect server in Enschede in the summer of 2022. That company managed the servers on which the data was stored. The 28-year-old claims that he was curious whether the security of the system was in order and that turned out not to be the case.

“I was in their system with the login administrator and Welcome01,” the suspect is quoted by the regional broadcaster East. He had seen that safety protocols had not been properly followed. The man wanted to see if he could put himself on the guest list for a festival.

That also worked. The IT professional gave himself access to the Awakenings techno festival. He could also request parking spaces. The man copied the data from the server to his own PC. According to the Public Prosecution Service, these were “very serious breaches” and data theft.

The development of the computer system, called Evi, had cost several euros. By the hacking action, the program suffered major image damage. NextSelect and ID&T are demanding a total of 97,000 euros in damages.

“I entered a store where I should not have been,” Oost quotes the suspect. His lawyer calls the sentence disproportionate. The 28-year-old has no criminal record and will soon become a father for the second time.

“My client has acted criminally and caused nuisance and damage, but he has opened up and expressed regret.” The judge will make a ruling next month.