Dutch teens arrested for trying to spy on Europol for Russia

Two Dutch teenage boys aged 17 were arrested by the Politie on Monday for allegedly using hacking devices to spy for Russia. According to De Telegraaf, the two used a WiFi sniffer device near Europol and Eurojust offices, as well as the Canadian embassy in The Hague.

This case marks an escalation from lower-level recruitment cases seen elsewhere in Europe, such as in Germany, where youngsters were paid by Russian agents to perform acts of vandalism and sabotage on critical infrastructure.

WiFi sniffers are devices that can identify wireless networks by listening to radio signals on WiFi channels, and intercept traffic. They are typically used in the reconnaissance stage of an attack.

Russian hackers have demonstrated their ability to exploit WiFi networks remotely, as reported by Volexity in a 2024 report. In that case, APT28 state hackers used the “nearest neighbor attack” to breach a U.S. firm through its enterprise WiFi network by leveraging a nearby organization within WiFi range.

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