No sensitive Europol information compromised in data breach by external contractor

Further to reports in the Dutch media, it is correct that there was a minor leakage of purely mainly historical outdated technical data, due to the negligence of an external contractor. No criminal intelligence or other law enforcement information was exposed or compromised.  Moreover, contrary to those reports, sensitive data such as login information, passwords, or technical documentation from our highly secure internal network, were never compromised.

The contractor has extensively investigated the content of the information in question and there is no increased risk of the Europol network being hacked as a result of the security breach.

The exposed files include technical information of a network infrastructure used by Europol as a carrier medium only. The security of Europol information transmitted over this network relies on security measures under the exclusive control of Europol, which by no means were exposed in these files. Furthermore, the carrier network about which technical information was leaked, is not accessible from the Internet.

Nevertheless, this incident is an important issue for Europol and we have taken corrective actions to mitigate any exposure and prevent a recurrence of such an incident by our contractors.