European Commission says hackers targeted its central mobile infrastructure during cyberattack

ISTANBUL

The European Commission was recently targeted by a cyberattack on its central mobile infrastructure, resulting in unauthorized access to staff names and mobile phone numbers.

The hackers managed to breach the commission's remote administration platform for smartphones and mobile devices, exposing the names and phone numbers of some staff members, tech magazine 01net reported on Tuesday.

The EU's central cybersecurity service, CERT-EU, detected the activity on Jan. 30.

The targeted infrastructure is used to remotely administer smartphones and other electronic devices provided to commission staff, which is a key component of the organization’s security.

While the hackers managed to breach the infrastructure, initial findings showed that they could not access the phones themselves.

The commission also confirmed the cyberattack last week, underlining that the incident was contained and the system cleaned within 9 hours with no compromise of mobile devices being detected.

"The Commission takes seriously the security and resilience of its internal systems and data and will continue to monitor the situation. It will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of its systems. The incident will be thoroughly reviewed and will inform the Commission's ongoing efforts to enhance its cybersecurity capabilities," it said in a written statement.

The tech magazine warned that, despite being foiled, the attack could still have consequences because the stolen data could be used to launch convincing phishing attacks.