Federal Reserve confirms it was hacked

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WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- The U.S. Federal Reserve confirmed that the security system for its electronic data banks had been breached, but did not say how much data had been accessed.

"The Federal Reserve System is aware that information was obtained by exploiting a temporary vulnerability in a website vendor product," the central bank said in a statement.

"The exposure was fixed shortly after discovery and is no longer an issue," the statement said.

The bank said "critical operations of the Federal Reserve System," had not been affected.

CNNMoney reported Thursday that a notice sent to bankers this week said email addresses, phone numbers and other contact information was compromised.

The notice was sent through the central bank's Emergency Communications System, CNNMoney reported.

In a Twitter posting, a group called OpLastResort, which is affiliated with an activist hacker group called Anonymous, took responsibility for the attack and posted a link that allowed users do download the compromised information.