BBS:      TELESC.NET.BR
Assunto:  French government systems hacked
De:       Mike Powell
Data:     Mon, 23 Feb 2026 12:52:57 -0500
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French government systems hacked - over 1.2 million private financial accounts
hit

By Sead Fadilpa?i? published 5 hours ago

Login credentials stolen from a civil servant

    Hackers breached France's FICOBA registry, stealing data on 1.2M bank
accounts
    Exposed details include IBANs, addresses, and taxpayer IDs, enabling SEPA
debit fraud
    Authorities pulled FICOBA offline, restored access, and are notifying
affected users

The French national bank account registry (FICOBA), a state agency which
manages a registry of all bank accounts in France, has suffered an attack which
saw hackers gain information on 1.2 million user accounts, including some
rather sensitivedata which could be leveraged in subsequent cyberattacks and
scam campaigns.

The news was confirmed by the French Ministry of Finance, which said login
credentials were stolen from a civil servant, and used to access a database
containing all bank accounts opened in French banking institutions.

From there, the unidentified miscreants took data from 1.2 million user
accounts, including bank account details (RIBs and IBANs), account holder
identities, postal addresses and, in some cases, taxpayer identification
numbers.

Not purely theoretical

While this information can be used in all sorts of fraudulent activities,
perhaps the most worrying one is SEPA direct debit fraud.

In the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) system (of which France is a part),
knowing someone's IBAN can allow a fraudster to initiate unauthorized direct
debit mandates with certain merchants. Banks can reverse fraudulent debits, but
victims will nonetheless experience financial loss and possible admin burden.

This isn't theoretical risk, either, as BleepingComputer notes banks were
already notified of multiple email and SMS campaigns making rounds, trying to
steal data or money directly from the recipients.  French citizens and bank
customers are advised to remain vigilant, not to respond to these emails, and
to reach out to their bank directly with any questions. We don't know how
successful these campaigns have been.

After discovering the attack, the French authorities restricted the access and
pulled FICOBA offline. Since then, it has been restored and is currently
operating as usual. Users affected by this attack are currently being notified
one by one.


https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/french-government-systems-hacked-over-1-
2-million-private-financial-accounts-hit

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