Free, France’s second-largest telecoms company, confirms being hit by cyberattack

Free, the second-largest internet service provider in France, confirmed being hacked this weekend following the attempted sale of purportedly stolen customer information on a cybercrime forum.

The Paris-based company has issued a warning that personal data was compromised in the incident, has filed a criminal complaint with the country’s public prosecutor and has notified France’s cybersecurity agency, as reported by newspaper Le Monde on Saturday.

The nature of the cyberattack has not been confirmed. The company said the intruders targeted an internal management tool and that the unauthorized access involved “personal data associated with the accounts of certain subscribers.”

“The affected subscribers have been or will be informed by email shortly,” said the company, adding that passwords and bank card details were unaffected, as were the contents of any of its users’ communications. Read the full story.

Rajesh Dhawan

Rajesh Dhawan is a technology professional who loves to write about Cyber-security events and stories, Cloud computing and Microsoft technologies. He loves to break complex problems into manageable chunks of meaningful information.