DigiNotar, the Dutch certificate authority (CA) which was recently at the centre of a significant hacking case, has been declared bankrupt.

The CA discovered it was compromised on 19 July, leading to 531 rogue certificates being issued. It was only in August that the attacks became public knowledge.

Such fake certificates can be used by hackers to intercept web communications and in this case had allegedly been used to watch over Gmail accounts. A fraudulent certificate for an MI6 website was also seen.

Parent company VASCO Data Security International confirmed today DigiNotar had filed for bankruptcy yesterday and processes have already been put in place to see it through bankruptcy.

A trustee' appointed by the Haarlem District Court has taken over management of the company.