Spanish authorities have arrested a 35-year-old Dutchman, who the authorities claim is responsible for a huge distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against Spamhaus last month.

The UK and Switzerland-based nonprofit organisation Spamhaus was badly hit by the DDoS attack, which several security firms claim is the largest DDoS to date.

Last month, the company said it has been under this cyber-attack for more than a week and the attacks started when it added the Netherlands-based web hosting firm, Cyberbunker, to its global blacklist.

The Dutch Public Prosecutor Service identified the arrested man only by the initials SK and said he was living in Barcelona, where he was arrested.

Authorities searched the house where the suspect stayed and seized computers, data carriers and mobile phones.

The Spanish Interior Ministry has reported that the suspect used a van, which is equipped with different antennas to scan frequencies – as a mobile computing office, which enabled him to hack anywhere in the country.

Spanish police said that the cyberattack also hit partners of Spamhaus in the US, UK and the Netherlands.

The team in Netherlands High Tech Crime carried out the police investigation and the arrest in Spain was done through Eurojust, a cooperation between judicial authorities within the European Union.