The data of several hundred Free customers is for sale on a clandestine forum, the French telecommunications operator told AFP on Thursday, September 14, partly confirming information from the Zataz blog, which mentioned a much larger number of Free customers. interested.
But according to the company, these are not 14 million customers, as claimed by the hacker who is trying to sell this personal information (last name, first name, postal address, email, telephone number), but rather “some subscriber files”, all located in the 18th and 19th arrondissements of Paris.
Free refers to “employee access”, “compromised by a hacker”, and claims to have filed a complaint, declared the incident to the National Commission for Information Technologies and Liberties (Cnil) and warned its subscribers.
Two samples released
According to the journalist and cybersecurity expert Damien Bancal, author of the specialized blog Zataz, the database is offered for “several hundred euros.” He was able to verify the veracity of some of the information from two samples distributed by the hacker, of 1,000 and 3,000 individuals respectively.
However, the identity of the hacker and his nationality are unknown.
Personal data leaks are very common and usually lead to the sale of information on dark web forums, a part of the Internet that search engines cannot access.
Other hackers then use this data for identity theft-based scams or to gain the trust of their targets by sending them personalized phishing emails.
Source: BFM TV
