In June, French tax authorities discovered that someone had gained access to the system and immediately cut off that access. At the time, however, it was not clear that the attacker had already stolen data. The perpetrator had repeatedly extracted small quantities of data, allowing the activity to go unnoticed by security services.
It was only after responsibility for the attack was claimed and the stolen data offered for sale on a dark web platform that the authorities reported the incident to France’s national data protection authority.
The tax administration is now also facing criticism for not having responded quickly enough.
