BERLIN, July 24. /ITAR-TASS/. The website of major euro zone financial administrator European Central Bank (ECB) has been attacked by Internet hackers, who have stolen e-mail addresses of thousands of website visitors and contacts of journalists and participants of ECB’s events, the bank’s officials said Thursday, adding that the police have started investigating the case.

The officials said that the bank was informed about the attack via an anonymous e-mail on Monday, July 21. As the result of the attack, around 20,000 e-mails of the website visitors, as well as several telephone numbers and postal addresses were stolen.

The bank’s clients are being informed on the incident and for their own security all their access passwords for the website are being annulled.

ECB spokesperson stressed that, luckily, this hacker attack did not lead to leakage of the bank’s or financial markets’ data.