EU Data Breach Exposes Emails, User Records in Major Cloud Hack

BRUSSELS

A major cybersecurity breach has exposed emails, user data and internal records across European Union systems after attackers infiltrated cloud infrastructure linked to the European Commission.

According to findings by CERT-EU, hackers extracted around 92GB of compressed data from a compromised account on Amazon Web Services (AWS), connected to the Commission’s Europa.eu platform, which hosts websites and digital services for multiple EU institutions.

The leaked data includes names, email addresses and email content, raising concerns over both internal communications and the exposure of sensitive personal information. Investigators said at least 29 EU entities may have been impacted, along with dozens of Commission users whose data was stored within the system.

Officials said the breach stemmed from a supply chain attack, where hackers first compromised an open-source security tool to obtain a secret API key. The stolen credentials were then used to gain access to the Commission’s cloud environment and extract stored data.

The hacking group ShinyHunters later published the stolen information online. The group is known for previous large-scale data leaks targeting corporate and government networks.

Initial estimates suggest the breach could be even larger, with attackers claiming to possess more than 350GB of data, including databases, documents and email backups, though the full extent remains under investigation.

The European Commission confirmed the incident affected its cloud-hosted web infrastructure but maintained that core internal systems were not compromised. Authorities have begun notifying affected entities while continuing forensic analysis to assess the scale and impact of the breach.