French Government Says 1.2 Million Bank Accounts Exposed in Breach

France’s Ministry of Economy on Wednesday disclosed a breach that exposed information on 1.2 million bank accounts.

Investigators discovered unauthorized access to the national bank account registry FICOBA.

The ministry stated on its website that a threat actor stole credentials belonging to an official and used them to access the database storing information on all bank accounts opened in France.

The breach occurred in late January and impacted 1.2 million accounts, including IBANs, account holder names, addresses, and in some cases tax identifiers.

The attacker’s access has been terminated and impacted individuals are being notified.

Officials said the attacker would not have been able to conduct banking operations or even view account balances.

Nevertheless, individuals have been warned of potential scams and phishing attempts.

Michael Jepson, penetration testing manager at CybaVerse, commented, “If individual members of an organisation can access large volumes of sensitive data unilaterally ...