The electronic identification service DigiD has been the victim of a cyber attack, leaving the service virtually inaccessible for its many users.
DigiD is the government's service of choice for official communications between it's various departments and citizens. As such, the details stored on the service are of a particularly sensitive nature.
Thankfully, however, the Ministry of Interior Affairs has reported that the site has not been hacked and the details of users remain safely protected.
The service has been the victim of a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack, or DDoS for short. This means that the service is bombarded by traffic from cyber-criminals, making it almost impossible for users to access the site.
Despite the service not having been hacked, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior Affairs has warned DigiD users to be wary of phishing emails.
Via these emails cyber-criminals attempt to extract personal details by fishing for personal details through a fake website. Anyone who has received an email such as this is advised to delete it and not to click on any links which may be inside the email.
Source: NRC