It posted screenshots of an internal Europol platform SIRIUS, which acts as a central reference point for police to access cross-border, electronic evidence. The post, seen by POLITICO, shows screenshots of the Europol Platform for Experts (EPE), private messaging exchanges, and the EC3 SPACE (Secure Platform for Accredited Cybercrime Experts) that allegedly contains 9,128 records including names of law enforcement officials with their titles. Europol, based in The Hague, is the EU’s second-largest agency.
As of publication, the EPE website was down due to site maintenance while the leaked data had been marked as sold on the hacker forum.
In a statement to POLITICO, Europol spokesperson Jan Op Gen Oorth said that the agency was aware of the incident, which “took place recently and was discovered immediately,” and added it was now assessing the situation.
“Neither Europol’s core system nor operational systems were hacked, which means no operational data from Europol has been compromised,” he added.
Some of the platforms claimed to have been hacked by IntelBroker are part of the tools of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), the agency’s department that fights cybercrime and cybersecurity issues.
It is the second recent data breach that Europol has been victim of. In March, POLITICO reported that a clutch of highly sensitive files containing the personal information of top law enforcement executives went missing last summer, including the hardcopy personnel file of Executive Director Catherine De Bolle.
The European Data Protection Supervisor, which oversees data protection issues at EU agencies, said it was not in a position to comment on the incident.