Police broadcast voice of key Odido hack suspect

Dutch police are broadcasting a voice recording of a suspect tied to the cyberattack on telecom provider Odido. The clip is being released on television programme Opsporing Verzocht in an effort to identify the caller after earlier appeals this summer went unanswered.

You can listen to the recording here.

Police say the unknown caller speaks neat Dutch with distinctive vocal traits that acquaintances might recognise. A voice expert analysed the recording beforehand to verify that the audio is genuine and not an artificial intelligence deepfake.

Caller tricked support staff

The call took place in February, when the man contacted the Odido call centre posing as an internal IT colleague trying to resolve an issue. He used technical English terminology to win the trust of a staff member, who granted him access to an internal network.

Hacker group ShinyHunters then stole the personal records of more than six million customers and demanded a ransom. Odido refused to pay, and the database was subsequently published on the dark web.

Data retained too long

The Team High Tech Crime suspects several Dutch individuals were involved and believes the perpetrators may have spoken about the operation in cyber circles or among acquaintances. The servers used to distribute the stolen data have since been taken offline.

The Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens and the State Inspectorate for Digital Infrastructure are examining whether Odido broke retention laws, as the leaked database included records from people who were no longer customers. Odido has refused to pay compensation, while hundreds of thousands of people have signed onto a pending mass claim.

Source: AD