Blackmailers steal personal data from ECB
HACKERS stole sensitive personal information from the European Central Bank’s (ECB) website this week, the institution said yesterday.
Email addresses and contact data were stolen in the attack.
The ECB received an anonymous call on Monday night requesting money in return for the stolen data. The bank did not disclose how much the blackmailer asked for, but did say that it refused to pay anything.
The database serves parts of the ECB website that gather registrations for events such as ECB conferences and visits. It is physically separate from any internal ECB systems.
“While most of the data were encrypted, parts of the database included email addresses, some street addresses and phone numbers that were not encrypted. The database also contains data on downloads from the ECB website in encrypted form,” the central bank said in a statement.
“The ECB is contacting people whose email addresses or other data might have been compromised and all passwords have been changed on the system as a precaution.”
The ECB said its security staff have addressed the weakness in the system, and have informed German police.