Massive breach in France: data of 678,000 residents stolen from state systems

The French Ministry of Finance announced overnight (between Thursday and Friday) that taxpayer data was stolen in a cyberattack. According to the ministry's statement, a "malicious actor" claimed on Wednesday that they had breached the systems of the French tax authority, the General Directorate of Public Finance, at the end of June.

Checks conducted following the claim confirmed that a cyberattack had indeed occurred, during which taxpayer data was viewed and extracted from the authority's systems. Further investigations are ongoing to determine exactly which data was exposed and the precise number of victims. The Ministry of Finance stated that further details will be published later.

"Affected users will receive a personal notification detailing which data may have been viewed or extracted, and if necessary, the precautions they should take," the ministry's statement said.

Today, the French Ministry of Finance updated that the data of 678,000 users was stolen as part of the cyberattack.

This is not the first time that official bodies in France have experienced such an attack. Last December, it was reported that several central banks in France and national postal services experienced widespread technical difficulties that prevented millions of customers from accessing online services and smartphone applications following a cyberattack.

Financial institutions affected by the malfunction include "La Banque Postale", "Caisse d'Epargne", and "Banque Populaire". At the same time, malfunctions were reported on the websites of "La Poste", the delivery service "Colissimo", and the service "Digiposte". On all these platforms, error messages indicated that the service was unavailable, which led to some package tracking sites being disabled as well. According to data from the Downdetector website, the websites have been unavailable since 06:00 in the morning.