Cyberattack on French tax authority: 678,000 taxpayers exposed, State in breach
The French tax authority suffered two breaches in June and July, exposing data belonging to 678,000 users. A cybersecurity expert points to gaps in state security.
Bercy hack: hundreds of thousands of taxpayers affected
The Directorate-General of Public Finances (DGFiP) confirmed that it was the victim of two separate breaches, occurring in late June and late July, according to Le Figaro. Personal data belonging to at least 678,000 users were compromised in these cyberattacks.
Cybersecurity expert Nicolas Arpagian, strategy director at Jizô AI and lecturer at Sciences Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye, highlights a first major malfunction: the public announcement of the breach only came in response to a publication by the attacker himself. An intrusion committed in June was only communicated to citizens in August — a delay of several weeks.
According to Arpagian, this delay raises a fundamental question about the State's detection capabilities: public services would be incapable of knowing in real time who is accessing their databases and what operations are being carried out there.
For the expert, author of Cybersecurity (PUF, 2022), the rules of digital protection have long been known. These attacks reveal that the administration has "clearly not done the necessary work" to secure its online infrastructure. France thus finds itself, in his words, "at the mercy of all types of digital aggressor".
The attacks against the French tax authority are part of a context of persistent vulnerability in the State's IT systems, whose flaws are exploited before the competent authorities even know about them.
Source: Le Figaro