The European Central Bank (ECB) had to shut down its Banks’ Integrated Reporting Dictionary (BIRD) website following a breach.
BIRD is hosted by an external provider and a group of unauthorised parties managed to get past the security measures. As a result, the hackers could access the contact data of 481 subscribers to the BIRD newsletter; however, passwords were not accessible.
The affected information consists of email addresses, names, and position titles of subscribers. Potential victims are being contacted by the ECB.
This breach was discovered during regular maintenance work, but according to the AFP, the hackers had access to BIRD since December 2018. The ECB has informed the European Data Protection Supervisor of the breach.
Neither ECB internal systems nor market-sensitive data were affected.
The breach succeeded in injecting malware onto the external server, aiding its phishing activities. BIRD will remain down until further notice.
BIRD provides the banking industry with details on how to produce statistical and supervisory reports.
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