Story perspectives

Hackers accessed personal data of 8.8 million in breach

By Drooid · Oct 5, 2026, 10:41 PM UTC · How we work

Summary

Story summary

Digital affairs ministry says hackers accessed personal data of about 8.8 million people.
Hackers used a Danish company's legitimate login credentials to breach the national registry.
Compromised records include names, addresses and CPR numbers, Denmark’s social-security identifiers.
Authorities cut off the company's system access and opened a police and data-protection investigation.
The ministry urged registrants to visit sikkerdigital.dk and not share passwords by phone or email.

History

Historical Context

In May-July 2017, hackers exploited an Apache Struts flaw at Equifax, stealing data of about 147.9 million Americans; the breach was disclosed on September 7 2017. The FTC, CFPB and states secured a $700 million settlement and CEO Richard Smith resigned. A later credential-theft attack on Denmark’s civil registry, reported by the Digital Affairs Ministry, exposed 8.8 million CPR numbers, prompting tighter EU data-security rules.

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Story summary

Digital affairs ministry says hackers accessed personal data of about 8.8 million people.
Hackers used a Danish company's legitimate login credentials to breach the national registry.
Compromised records include names, addresses and CPR numbers, Denmark’s social-security identifiers.
Authorities cut off the company's system access and opened a police and data-protection investigation.
The ministry urged registrants to visit sikkerdigital.dk and not share passwords by phone or email.

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