France Tax Agency Lost Data on 600,000 Taxpayers Due to Stolen Passwords, Weak Security

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France's tax authority DGFIP suffered a data breach in June and July when an attacker used dozens of stolen staff passwords to access the E-Contact taxpayer messaging system undetected. The breach exposed tax and personal data on roughly 350,000 individuals and 250,000 businesses, while a separate route via the APEX land-registry portal compromised data on nearly 435,000 households. The theft only came to light on August 12 when the attacker publicly claimed it on an online forum, seven weeks after the first data was taken. A subsequent audit by France's national cybersecurity agency ANSSI, ordered by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, concluded the attack was not sophisticated, contradicting earlier government claims. ANSSI attributed the breach to password-only login portals, poor network segmentation, and a security operations centre that never monitored the ADER application portal.

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