14 DAY TRIAL // The personal information of 540,563 individuals has been stolen from an emergency contact database after the website of the French Ministry of Europe, and Foreign Affairs has been breached.
According to the Ministry's public statement, the hackers managed to get their hands on the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of all people who had an account on the French Ariane emergency contact database.
The platform is used by the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs to allow citizens traveling abroad to received security updates in case of emergency.
"Personal data recorded during registration on the Ariane platform have been stolen," says the Ministry's statement. "These data could be misused but limited in their effect since the information does not include sensitive, financial or likely to disclose the destinations of the trips declared in Ariane."
All impacted individuals were contacted by the Ministry
The French data privacy watchdog National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) was contacted within 72 hours after the attack was detected on December 5, 2018.
All the individuals affected by this breach were contacted by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs following the security attack being discovered, with every one of them being warned of the increased risk of phishing and scam attacks.
"As soon as we became aware of this attack, we put in place measures, technically to prevent any further intrusions of this type," added the Ministry. "In consultation with ANSSI, we have strengthened the security of the database concerned by the attack."
Despite the Ministry's reassurances that the impacted individuals are not risking much damage in the aftermath of the breach, there still is an increased possibility that the people who had their info stolen might be successfully targeted in future phishing campaign peddling malware.
