The Wrong Phone Call

In early 2026 a hacker called a customer service employee at the Dutch telecom provider Odido and pretended to be from the IT department. The employee logged in on a fake copy of the work system. Odido blocked the account within an hour, but the data had already been downloaded. No alarm went off: Odido only found out when the hackers told it themselves. Odido paid no ransom, and the hackers put the data of more than 6 million people on the dark web, including bank account numbers and passport and driving licence numbers. Regulators are investigating whether security was in order. The police investigation is also still ongoing. In September 2026 the police were still looking for the man who made the call and played his voice on the Dutch TV programme Opsporing Verzocht. A 24-year-old man from Amsterdam was also arrested in an investigation into the hacker group ShinyHunters, but according to the police not in the investigation into the Odido hack. The characters in this puzzle are made up. The hack is real.