Notification
One more: the beginning of February, two social security providers were hacked, leaking information on more than 33 million French people. We learned our lesson at the beginning of March another attack, this time against CAF. Last week, hackers took French government and diplomatic services offline. And this week, it’s France Travail’s turn : the agency just announced a data theft that could be massive.
Another hack in France
Well, definitely, when the law of series is thrown into it, it doesn’t stop. The newly named agency France Travail announces that it was the victim of a massive attack against its database between February 6 and March 5. According to administration officials, nearly 43 million people, or nearly all French people registered in the past 20 years, are potentially affected by this theft.
Notification
Specifically, the hackers would manage to extract the France Travail user file. In other words, it is a database of all people registered with Pôle Emploi over the last 20 years that ends up in the (virtual) hands of a group of cybercriminals. Note, a little less than a month ago, the blogger and IT security specialist Bluetouff reported on vulnerabilities on the France Travail platform. Let’s hope it doesn’t fall on him (again)…
Good morningWe had a good laugh this weekend, but do we agree that the information has been reported and that your teams are working hard to fix this before it becomes a national tragedy?
What data is stolen?
In fact, this register contains a large amount of information about all users of the agency. France Travail therefore communicates to us the data contained on each of the profile sheets:
- name
- Name
- Social insurance number (and therefore birth office/municipality)*
- France work identifier
- Birthdate
- Email address
- Address
- Telephone number
Although banking information and passwords do not appear to have been leaked, these elements can still be used against hacker victims. Thus, their misuse can lead to potential identity theft, as well as more accurate social phishing attacks than before. Therefore, distrust and caution are needed in the coming months.
If you are concerned, file a complaint online!
So what should you do if you think you are one of the 43 million French victims of this hack? Your best bet is to file a complaint to protect yourself from potential identity theft. It is possible to file a complaint online without having to go to the gendarmerie or police station. On top of that, this takes place on a dedicated government website.
Now we just have to wait and see the true impact of this massive attack on the France Travail database.