Pierluigi Paganini July 12, 2022

Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, was the target of a failed hacking attempt.

The European Central Bank confirmed that its President, Christine Lagarde, was the target of a failed hacking attempt.

The European Central Bank revealed that the hacking attempt took place recently, but the good news it that its experts were able to detect and halt it.

“The attempt took place “recently,” the Frankfurt-based central bank for the 19 countries that use the euro said in an emailed response to a query about a report by Business Insider.” reported the Associated Press. “The bank added that “it was identified and halted quickly” but that it had nothing more to say amid an investigation.”

According to Business Insider, threat actors attempted to hack Lagarde’s mobile device by sending her a text message from what appeared to be former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone number. The message sent to the ECB told Lagarde that Merkel wanted to communicate with her by WhatsApp, which is considered a more secure channel.

The attack failed because Lagarde was suspicious of the message and contacted Merkel by phone. The threat actors were interested in taking over the accounts of various prominent figures on various messaging services, including WhatsApp.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, ECB)

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