European Space Agency Confirms Cybersecurity Breach As Hackers Claim Theft of 200GB of Data

The European Space Agency (ESA) has confirmed it is responding to a cybersecurity incident involving several externally hosted science servers, following claims by hackers that they exfiltrated up to 200 gigabytes of internal data. While ESA says no classified or mission-critical systems were affected, cybersecurity experts warn the incident highlights growing vulnerabilities across the increasingly interconnected global space sector.

In a statement, ESA said the affected infrastructure consisted of a “very small number” of servers located outside its core corporate network and used for collaborative engineering work with external scientific partners. The agency emphasized that the compromised systems contained only unclassified information and that its primary operational, corporate, and classified environments remain secure.