Internal IT disruption resolved with no impact on public data resources

Two weeks ago, EMBL-EBI identified and successfully disrupted the early stages of an attempt to compromise our internal IT systems. 

As a precautionary measure, our technical teams acted swiftly and temporarily shut down segments of our internal operational systems to ensure the security of our environment. This resulted in a brief disruption to email and collaboration tools for some of our colleagues. 

The incident has been resolved, and all our internal systems have been restored to normal operation, some with strengthened security. 

Please note that the EMBL-EBI public-facing data resources were not affected by this incident and have remained fully operational throughout. Extensive investigations have not identified any data loss.

EMBL-EBI is committed to cybersecurity, and our Incident Management Team responded swiftly and effectively to the situation. We continue to take the necessary steps to protect our systems and data resources.

Update (4 August 2025):

Thorough forensic examination of all systems and logs since we posted the original notification has revealed that the incident was confined to the following data accessed: EMBL-EBI active and disabled account holder names, user names and encrypted passwords.