French Finance Ministry Targeted in Cyber Espionage Attack

The French government confirmed that over 150 Finance Ministry computers were affected by a cyber attack that targeted information related to the February G20 summit.

The incident was first reported by French weekly magazine Paris Match and is said to have occurred in December.

The origin of the attack was traced back to China, a French government official saying that "we noted that a certain amount of the information was redirected to Chinese sites."

However, this does not prove the attackers were Chinese. It only shows that they were using Chinese servers, which is a common practice between hackers because hosting providers in the country are generally unresponsive to abuse reports.

On the other hand, a Chinese cyber espionage effort cannot be ruled out either because, despite the government's repeated denials of involvement in such activities, other intelligence agencies have confirmed it uses such methods.

According to the BBC, Patrick Pailloux, director general of the French National Agency for IT Security confirmed the attacks and the fact that information was stolen.

He described the attackers as "a number of professional, determined and persistent hackers" and noted that "it is the first attack of this size and scale against the French state."

Budget Minister Francois Baroin said the investigation is ongoing but noted that "we have leads."

It's also worth noting that the G20 summit, which took place in Paris two months after the attacks, touched on issues that were particularly unfavourable for the Chinese.

Similar cyber espionage attacks against several Canadian government agencies including the Finance Department and the Treasury Board, were also traced back to China.

The country was also the origin of a large-scale long-running series of industrial espionage attacks dubbed operation Night Dragon which targeted many international oil, energy and petrochemical companies.