Towards a massive data leak? The personal information of around 1.6 million people looking for work is “likely to be disclosed”, France Travail and the National Union of Local Missions (UNML) announced on Monday. This potential data leak follows a computer hack, specify the two organizations, and concerns young people followed by local missions to help them find a job.
The data concerned are the first and last name, date of birth, social security number, France Travail identifier, email and postal addresses, as well as the telephone number. “No password or banking details were extracted,” however, specifies the two organizations in a joint press release.
“The first investigations reveal that the account of an agent, responsible for account management of a local mission, was hacked”, details the press release which specifies that the attacker was then able to “create two new accounts” which allowed him to consult “the files of the young people accompanied”.
These are young people registered with France Travail or to whom training has been recommended via the Ouiform tool operated by this organization.
Vigilance against phishing
“The people concerned will be informed and we recommend that they immediately exercise the greatest vigilance in the face of phishing attempts (fraudulent emails or calls) or identity theft and never communicate their password or banking details by telephone or email,” according to the press release, which adds that “France Travail, like other public organizations, never asks for it.”
The incident was reported to the National Information Systems Security Agency (Anssi) and the National Commission for Information Technology and Liberties (Cnil).
On November 14, the Pajemploi service used to declare maternal assistants and child minders at home was the victim of a data theft which could have affected up to 1.2 million people.
At the end of October, France Travail was the victim of a hack, claimed by the cybercriminal group Stormous. The latter assured that he had recovered 30 GB of data belonging to more than 31,000 accounts.