The digital kitchen is heating up, and not in a good way. The European Commission recently confirmed it was the target of a sophisticated cyberattack, joining a growing list of high-profile victims caught in the crosshairs of vulnerabilities within Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM).
While the Commission’s response was swift, the incident serves as a grim reminder: even the regulators aren’t immune to the software flaws they seek to legislate against.
The Breach: 9 Hours of Chaos
On January 30, 2026, the Commission’s central infrastructure for managing mobile devices flagged suspicious activity. Attackers managed to infiltrate the platform, potentially accessing the names and phone numbers of staff members.
The silver lining? The Commission’s security team acted within a 9-hour window to contain the breach and scrub the systems. As of now, there is no evidence that individual mobile devices were fully compromised—the damage appears limited to directory-level data.
The Culprit: Ivanti EPMM Vulnerabilities
While the Commission has been tight-lipped about the exact entry point, all signs point to two critical vulnerabilities in Ivanti EPMM: CVE-2026-1281 and CVE-2026-1340.
These aren’t your run-of-the-mill bugs. These are code-injection vulnerabilities that allow remote attackers to:
Execute arbitrary code without any authentication.
Gain a foothold in unpatched servers.
Access sensitive metadata of all connected mobile assets.
A Domino Effect Across Europe
The European Commission isn’t the only one feeling the heat. A wave of “identical” breaches has swept through the continent:
The Netherlands: The Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) and the Council for the Judiciary (Rvdr) reported nearly identical breaches involving employee contact data.
Finland: Valtori, a government ICT agency, disclosed a breach that could impact up to 50,000 users following a zero-day exploit on their MDM service.
Technical Note: Shadowserver recently reported finding over 50 Ivanti EPMM servers globally that show signs of compromise related to these specific CVEs.
The Irony of Timing
The breach occurred just ten days after the European Commission proposed new cybersecurity legislation (on January 20) aimed at strengthening defenses against state-backed actors. It seems the attackers wanted to send a message before the ink on the proposal was even dry.
Why This Matters for Geeks & Admins
If you are managing an enterprise fleet using Ivanti, the message is clear: Patch or perish. Mobile Device Management (MDM) platforms are the “keys to the kingdom”—if the management server is compromised, every connected device is at risk.
Quick Checklist for Admins:
Check your Ivanti EPMM version immediately.
Verify if your servers are exposed via the Shadowserver database.
Monitor for unauthorized access to staff directory files.
