The European Union’s top executive body has confirmed a cyberattack after hackers reportedly stole large amounts of data from its cloud storage. European Commission spokesperson Nika Blazevic confirmed the discovery of a cyber-attack which affected part of the institution’s cloud infrastructure.
Immediate steps were taken to contain the attack and risk mitigation measures were implemented. The investigation is ongoing, but the Commission confirms that its internal systems were not affected.
In a longer statement, the Commission said the breach affected its cloud infrastructure hosting the Commission’s web presence on the Europa.eu platform. This platform hosts much of the Commission’s website data.
News of the breach was first reported on Friday, citing sources with knowledge of the incident. According to the report, hackers stole hundreds of gigabytes of data, including multiple databases, from the European Commission’s account with a major cloud services provider. The hacker provided evidence of their access, including screenshots.
It is not immediately clear what kinds of data were stolen.