Hackers Steal Tax and Land Registry Data in Cyberattacks on French Government Systems

Hackers have stolen tax and income-related data belonging to hundreds of thousands of individuals and businesses after breaching the computer systems of France's tax authority and land registry, French officials have confirmed.

According to France's Directorate General of Public Finances (DGFiP), two separate cyberattacks targeted its computer systems in June and July.

In the first attack, which occurred in June, data from at least 678,000 individual and professional accounts were compromised. The stolen information included names, income-related records, and details of tax rates and payments.

Authorities said a second cyberattack in July resulted in the theft of data from approximately 200,000 land registry accounts.

However, the hacking group ZeroBytes previously claimed it had obtained information from 250,000 land registry accounts, allegedly containing data linked to nearly 2 million property owners.

The group claimed responsibility for the attacks on a dark web forum and said it had gained access through a virtual private network (VPN) used by French tax officials. ZeroBytes has also been linked to several previous cyberattacks targeting French government computer systems.

Cybersecurity experts say France remains one of the countries most frequently targeted by cybercriminals because of the volume of sensitive public-sector data held by government agencies.

The latest breaches follow several major cyber incidents in France this year. In April, the National Agency for Secure Documents (ANTS), which manages national identity document applications, suffered a significant cyberattack that affected the data of approximately 12 million individuals and professionals.

Earlier, in February, France's Ministry of Economy reported that a major security breach had compromised information linked to about 1.2 million bank accounts.

French authorities said investigations into the latest attacks are ongoing as officials work to determine the full extent of the breaches and strengthen cybersecurity protections across government systems.