Lisbon, Oct. 8, 2026 (Lusa) - A cyberattack on an IT firm that worked for the Portuguese Republic's Information System (SIRP) let hackers access unclassified data from the Portuguese secret services and other organisations, the SIRP confirmed on Thursday.
«The data was reportedly obtained through a cyberattack on the development server (used for testing) of the service provider which, during 2025, was contracted to design the public websites of the SIRP, SIS [Information and Security Service] and the Strategic Defence Information Service [SIED]», an official SIRP source told Lusa today, emphasising that these three portals «contain only unclassified information».
The clarification comes after a cybercrime forum announced the sale of a 120-gigabyte collection of SIRP data on Wednesday; according to the service, it may also include «information from the websites of dozens of public and private organisations that contracted the same service provider to build their respective websites».
In the case of SIRP, whose portal contains public data, the information will correspond to «some details of a limited series of applications submitted» to the service which the company contracted in 2025 «will have transferred to a system under its responsibility».
«The IT infrastructure and systems of the SIRP and the SIS and SIED data centres remained secure,» the same source emphasised in writing, specifying that the servers for these services' public websites «are completely separate from those used in the Services' operations».
«There is no evidence or indication that classified or operational information has been compromised. As such, any reference to possible access to classified information is unfounded,» they stressed.
The attacked company itself reported the incident to the SIRP, which took all necessary measures to mitigate the situation, and the SIRP reported the facts to the Attorney General's Office (PGR).
«The SIRP will continue to assess the situation and will take all necessary steps», it assured.
According to the specialist website Pplware, which reported the data-sale announcement, the hackers claim to have 120 gigabytes of data spread across 312,144 files, including 96 databases, the source code of 180 websites, private documents, emails, personal data and information relating to systems and applications.
Although the message states that the cyberattack targeted the sirp.pt domain, associated with SIRP, the service said to Lusa that its public website «remained secure and was unaffected by the incident».
IB/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
