"The affected information consists of the email addresses, names and position titles of the subscribers. The ECB is contacting people whose data may have been affected", the bank said.
The bank stressed that the BIRD was separate from other ECB systems, which minimizes risks for other websites.
According to the financial institution, the BIRD website provides banks with details on how to produce statistical and supervisory reports.
The news comes after "severe findings" in the area of banks’ IT security management were reportedly revealed earlier. The institution also runs controlled hacking tests to identify weaknesses in banks’ systems, according Bloomberg.
Earlier this week, the ECB’s banking supervision arm published a newsletter in which it stated there will be a number of on-site inspections on IT-risk related topics in the coming months, Bloomberg said.
Notably, the security breach happened after the ECB made reportedly repeated calls for commercial banks in the EU to invest in more secure information technology systems amid a growing number of cyber threats, according Bloomberg.
This is not the first time the ECB has to deal with hacking attacks. In 2014, the security of its public website’s database was breached, resulting in 20,000 stolen email addresses.
