IANS | 25 Jul, 2014
The European Central Bank (ECB) Thursday said its website had been
hacked and some email addresses and other contact information stolen,
but insisted no market-sensitive data was compromised.
ECB said
the hacked database serves parts of the ECB website that gather
registrations for events such as ECB conferences and visits. Most of the
data was encrypted, but parts of the database including email
addresses, street addresses and phone numbers were not encrypted, Xinhua
reported.
The database also contained encrypted data on
downloads from the ECB website, but no internal systems or market
sensitive data were compromised as the database was physically
separated, the ECB announced.
The theft came to light after an anonymous email was sent to the ECB seeking financial compensation for the data.
The
ECB is contacting people whose email addresses or other data might have
been stolen. All passwords have been changed on the ECB system as a
precaution.
German police have been informed and an investigation
has started. ECB data security experts have also begun addressing the
vulnerability.
