E.C.B. Says It Has Been Hacked in Apparent Blackmail Attempt
The European Central Bank said on Thursday that hackers had broken into an internal database and stolen information about journalists and others, in what appeared to be part of a blackmail scheme.
The central bank said that the information stolen was from people who have registered for central bank events, which include news conferences or gatherings of economists and other experts. The information contained relatively harmless data such as names, email addresses and telephone numbers.
Still, the incident was embarrassing for an institution that prizes security and confidentiality. The central bank is a trove of highly confidential information such as records of transactions between commercial banks in the eurozone and the central bank, or communications between the E.C.B. and other central banks.
No market-sensitive data was compromised, the central bank said in a statement, adding that the hacked database was part of the public website and was not connected to any other internal systems.
“The E.C.B. takes data security extremely seriously,” the central bank said.
The theft was discovered after the bank received an anonymous email seeking money in return for the data. The bank said the German police were investigating the theft, and that its own security experts had addressed the weakness in the database.
Information on at least one International New York Times reporter was among the data stolen, according to an email that the bank sent to the reporter.
Source: NYT
