Online retailers are demanding banks and the government take tougher action to combat hackers and cyber criminals, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Monday.

Last week, the online payment system iDEAL was disrupted after a cyber attack on ING, Rabobank and other banks.

The justice minister has given priority to combating child pornography and terrorism,’ said Wijnand Jongen, director of online retail umbrella Thuiswinkel.nl. ‘Cyber crime is also supposed to be a priority but there is little evidence of this,’ he said.

‘It is now time to put words into action,’ Jongen told the FD.

Communication

Retail sector organisation Detailhandel Nederland also called for better communication, emergency measures and back-up systems. ING in particular came under fire last week for being slow to inform customers about the problems.

Former KPN chief executive Ad Scheepbouwer, who is a major shareholder in mail order group Wehkamp, said the banks are not acknowledging the problem properly.

By simply compensating customers who are victims of cyber crime, the banks are funding the hackers, he told the FD. In order to combat cyber crime properly, both government and industry need to improve their security expertise and develop a feeling of urgency. ‘At the moment, both are lacking,’ he told the paper.

Revenge

The Telegraaf says that Friday’s attack on ING and iDEAL do not appear to have been a serious attempt to steal customer details.

‘It would appear to have been a campaign to get at the bank, possibly instigated by an angry client,’ security expert Barry van Kampen told Metro on Monday.

Others say Friday’s DDoS attack was ‘not professional’ and ‘childlike in its simplicity’, the Telegraaf reports.

It could also have been a smokescreen to detract attention from ‘other things happening via the back door’, Van Kampen told the paper.

Criminal investigation

However, economic affairs minister Henk Kamp told television talk show Eva Jinek op Zondag he had faith that the big banks are doing their best. ‘The big three are working well. The systems were attacked but not hacked,’ he said.

It is up to banks themselves to ensure their systems are safe, he said. ‘The government should help and it is right that the banks have made a formal complaint. Now there will be a criminal investigation.’