ECB Victim of Extortion Attempt After Database Was Hacked

Unidentified hackers broke into a database belonging to the European Central Bank and attempted to use the breach to extort cash from the institution.

“There had been a breach of the security protecting a database” serving the public website, the Frankfurt-based ECB said in a statement today. “This led to the theft of e-mail addresses and other contact data left by people registering for events at the ECB. No internal systems or market-sensitive data were compromised.”