The European Central Bank (ECB) has been approached by cyber criminals demanding a ransom after information was stolen from its website.

The FI confirmed today that there had been a breach in the security system protecting a database serving its public website. This led to the theft of up to 20,000 email addresses and other contact data left by people registering for events at the ECB.

However, the Frankfurt-based bank said that no internal systems or market sensitive information were compromised.

The ECB revealed that the theft came to light after it received an anonymous email seeking financial compensation for the data. While most of the data was encrypted, parts of the database included email addresses, street addresses and phone numbers that were not.

The ECB is contacting people whose personal data might have been compromised, and all passwords have been changed on the system as a precaution.

The bank said that it took data protection “extremely seriously” and that it had informed German police of the theft, which was now being investigated.

Commenting on the data breach, Anne MacRae, head of financial services at Fujitsu, said: “As the sophistication of cyber attacks continue to increase, it has never been more important for organisations to be robust in their security.

“This is particularly important within the financial services sector, with personal data and highly confidential information at risk of falling into the wrong hands. The fact that the European Central Bank’s website has been hacked is a huge concern, and should act as a catalyst for financial services organisations to start ramping up their security.”

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