Nowadays, a hacking attack comes as no surprise. At the dawn of the hi-tech evolution, every hacking crime appeared as breaking news. However, modern PC users do not consider a cyber-attack as something stunning. Nevertheless, some computer nerds do not only hack private emails or accounts in social networks, but they dare to challenge one of the most affluent “moneyboxes” in the world: the European Central Bank. After having hacked the official website, attackers gained access to the enormous contact database. The hacker demanded money for stolen data, which included contact information for people who had registered for conferences and visits at ECB. Immediately, an investigation was launched by German police. The break-in was only discovered when the thief emailed the bank to ask for financial compensation for the data. The ECB spokeswoman stated that most of the stolen data was encrypted, but that parts of the databases including email addresses, some street addresses, and phone numbers were stored in plaintext. The ECB highlighted that no market sensitive data or internal banking systems were compromised.
