France's federal tax and public finance agency has said data on around 678,000 people and businesses was stolen by hackers in June and July, admitting it missed the exfiltration in initial investigations.
The Directorate General of Public Finances (DGFiP) said hackers had used credentials stolen from a DGFiP agent and a third party to access its systems and extract data on tax income, tax rates, and business tax identification numbers.
In a press release shared on 14 August, the Ministry of Public Action and Accounts said it had detected the breach and suspended access earlier this year, but only identified the stolen data after in-depth investigations launched on 12 August.
According to DarkWebSonar, the group ZeroBytes claimed on a hacking forum on 12 August that it had stolen 678,438 files from the DGFiP in June. On the same forum a day later, the group said it had also stolen 252,149 DGFiP records with data on more than 2 million people in July.
