France's state-owned defense firm Naval Group is investigating a cyberattack after 1TB of allegedly stolen data was leaked on a hacking forum. On July 23, 2025, a threat actor using the moniker 'Neferpitou' published a large sample of 13 GB of data allegedly stolen from Naval Group. Meanwhile, Naval Group is investigating with the assistance of external experts to determine if the leaked data originated from them. "We immediately launched technical investigations with the support of a team of cybersecurity experts and the Naval Group's CERT in close collaboration with the French Authorities," reads the public statement. The company designs, builds, and maintains military naval vessels, including frigates, destroyers, nuclear submarines, and aircraft carriers, as well as maritime combat systems and digital warfare technology. Naval Group (formerly DCNS) is a French defense contractor specializing in naval defense systems and warships. Bill Toulas Bill Toulas is a tech writer and infosec news reporter with over a decade of experience working on various online publications, covering open-source, Linux, malware, data breach incidents, and hacks. Hence, the leaked data could be a recycle of what was stolen by the notorious threat group at the time. Naval Group is the primary supplier to the French Navy, but it also exports to countries such as Australia, Brazil, India, and Egypt. The threat actor gave Naval Group 72 hours to message them to negotiate an extortion payment. Notably, the data was posted on DarkForums, which has seen a 600% surge in activity after BreachForums' collapse in April 2025, acting as the new exchange hub for the clearweb cybercrime community. It is majority-owned by the French government, with the rest held by defense giant Thales Group. The data contained what appears to be classified CMS for military vessels, technical documents, development VMs with simulation data, and internal communications.
This Cyber News was published on www.bleepingcomputer.com. Publication date: Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:35:29 +0000