Standards bodies set bad IT standards

In another utterly charming turn of events, Brussels-based European standardization bodies CEN and CENELEC were disrupted by the coinbasecartel ransomware gang. Documented on August 1, 2026, at 05:30 UTC, this mess hit the very organizations responsible for technical standards across EU and EEA markets. One might naively hope that setting official technical rules would grant immunity from basic cyber threats, but reality clearly knows better. Guarding against such humiliating disruptions requires these EU market standard-setters to thoroughly harden their internal architecture before lecturing the rest of Europe.