French public employment administration loses control of citizens' data after biggest breach in Gallic history.
Hackers stole 20 years of personal data relating to job seekers from a French agency.
The boss of France Travail, Alexandre Saubot, has a right to look grim.
It's just weeks since 33 million French users had their data stolen from a pair of payment providers.
This very significant data leak took place between February 6 and March 5, 2024.The data stolen were: First and last name, social security number, date of birth, France Travail identifier, email and postal addresses and telephone numbers.
By law, the employment agency must individually notify all people affected by this personal data breach.
Data from individuals with a job candidate profile was also exposed.
This data increases the risk of identity theft and phishing for the exposed individuals, so the country's data protection agency, the National Commission of [Technology] and Liberties recommends potentially impacted people to be particularly vigilant with emails, phone calls, and SMS they receive.
It] warns that cybercriminals may use what's available to correlate with missing data points from other breaches.
Aware of the consequences that this may cause, we will inform all identified people via their personal space or by email to whom we obviously apologize.
The security of [your] data is a constant concern for us.
One thing I'll never forget is a scene of street construction in a French town: It's about 11:30am, and three guys all get done with the excavator and jackhammers.
One guy goes and grabs something long from the bed of a truck, another heads to the cab and reaches for a brightly colored bundle, and the third guy grabs some chairs from the other side.
Right in the middle of the cordoned-off construction zone, the first guy sets up a folding table, the second guy neatly places a tablecloth on top along with a baguette and bottle of wine and some cheese etc.
Working in France years ago I received a letter from HR, addressed to me and clearly labelled Personal and Confidential.
It should be obvious by now that connecting government systems to the Internet that contain personal citizen data has failed.
You will never secure that data, no matter what you do.
Population of France is a little less than 70 million.
Remove 20-25% of young people who are studying and you get an idea of how many French people experienced unemployment.
IGotOut is heading for glory, OK:. This clearly breaks GDPR, [which] states you should only hold data as long as strictly necessary.
This Cyber News was published on securityboulevard.com. Publication date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 17:13:05 +0000