PARIS: Hackers have stolen the details of the revenues of hundreds of thousands of individuals and companies from French tax and land registry computers, authorities admitted Friday.
The General Direction of Public Finance (DGFiP) said there had been two separate hacks of its computer system in June and July.
A hacking group had earlier claimed to have carried out the computer raids.
The DGFiP said details on at least 678,000 individuals and professional accounts were taken in the first hack in June and that information on names, “reference income data” and tax rates paid were among the details taken.
The authorities said the second theft in July concerned details on 200,000 land registry accounts.
The so-called “Zerobytes” group that claimed earlier to have staged the hacks said it had details on 250,000 land registry accounts, involving about two million people who owned land and property.
The thefts were claimed on a dark-web forum by Zerobytes, which has been associated with past hacks of French government computers. The cybercriminals said they had access to a VPN used by tax officials.
According to experts, France is one of the countries most targeted by cybercriminals.
In April, the ANTS agency which handles identity document applications, was hit by a massive attack affecting the data of nearly 12 million individuals and professionals.
In February, the finance ministry said that a large-scale breach of its computer system had resulted in the theft of the details of 1.2 million bank accounts.
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