Last week, the Free operator owned by billionaire Xavier Niel suffered a massive cyberattack. The hacker put nearly 20 million customer personal data up for sale on the Dark Web.
The Internet provider Free revealed that it was the victim of a major cyberattack last week. Indeed, an IT charlatan managed to break into a Free management tool, thus recovering more than 19 million personal data of the operator's customers.
In a publication released on Wednesday October 30, 2024, the National Commission for Information Technology and Liberties (CNIL), the French personal data policeman, announced that an investigation has been opened to shed light on the cyberattack. According to RTL, nearly five million bank identifiers (IBAN) have fallen into the hands of these crooks.
An online form to file a complaint
In a publication released this Wednesday, October 30, the CNIL announced that an investigation had been opened on the one hand to clarify the situation, and on the other hand allowing them to file a complaint with the CNIL if they believe that their data personal data were not sufficiently secured.
To facilitate the processing of files, the CNIL initially announced that Free customers should have the possibility of filing a complaint via an online form which should soon be available on the website cybermalveillance.gouv.fr. Their statements were thus to be added to the investigation without them having to go to a police station.
The latter, which was to be put online on October 31, was still pending today. An initiative ultimately abandoned, without any explanation or justification. Neither the prosecution nor the CNIL have commented on this subject. A surprising decision since these online forms had known a real success in several other cases of cyberattacks.
What to do if you are concerned?
The people whose data was stolen are supposed to have already received an email from Free in recent days. Two messages were apparently sent by the operator: a first concerning the violation of data relating to the customer file, sent from Friday evening, and a second mentioning unauthorized access to IBANs, which the customers concerned should have received from Monday, still according to RTL. People whose banking identifiers (IBAN) have been hacked are advised to monitor their accounts carefully.
