ShinyHunters Claims Theft of Council of Europe HR and Payroll Data

ShinyHunters claimed it breached the Council of Europe and stole roughly 297 GB of data, saying it exfiltrated more than 429,000 files from multiple departments and threatening to publish the material unless the organization makes contact by June 16. The gang’s leak-site post described a haul spanning the Secretariat, human resources, payroll administration, parliamentary and conference-related units, and said the cache includes payslips, personnel files, CVs, payroll exports, contract records, and performance evaluations affecting more than 10,000 staff.

The allegedly stolen records contain highly sensitive personal data, including names, addresses, dates of birth, salaries, bank details, tax and social security information, and medical or absence records. The Council of Europe said it is investigating the claims and had not confirmed a breach at the time of reporting, while the incident was linked in coverage to ShinyHunters’ broader run of extortion and data-theft operations involving Salesforce-related intrusions, Snowflake customer breaches, and reported exploitation of an Oracle PeopleSoft zero-day.