Hackers broke into the computer system of the Natural History Museum in Berlin and stole the data of more than 37.000 visitors who bought tickets online and paid through the online payment system PayPal.
"The museum regrets to announce that a cyber attack has affected 37.243 museum clients. Hackers have stolen their sensitive personal information. We apologize to the victims of the attack," the museum said.
The attack reportedly affected some of the guests who purchased tickets from 2021 through the museum's online store.
During that period, more than 1.86 million people passed through the museum, and the attack hit about two percent of visitors, and only those who used the PayPal online money transfer system.
The attack happened back in October last year, and the museum immediately filed a lawsuit and immediately informed the public about it. The actual number of victims has only now been established. The museum requested the help of cyber-security experts who analyzed the attack.
Currently, "prominent" forensic experts from the field of IT technologies are working on the case, whose task is to clean the system and gradually restore its functioning, the natural history museum announced on March 11, adding that the basic systems are already working.
Also, the museum can still be visited without restrictions and it is possible to purchase tickets safely.
In February of this year, the museum announced that it was the target of a targeted hacker attack and that most of the approximately 450 employees, mainly from three scientific fields, could only use the computer system to a limited extent, and that they could not even be contacted via e-mail.
The Natural History Museum in Berlin is the largest museum of its kind in Germany, and its collection includes around 30 million objects. The full name is Natural History Museum - Leibniz Institute for the Study of Evolution and Biological Diversity.
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