Last month, a cybercriminal managed to compromise eight French sports federations. The French Boxing Federation (FFBoxe), the French Motorsport Federation (FFSA), the French Motorcycling Federation (FFM), the French Roller & Skateboard Federation (FFRS), the French Sports and Cultural Federation (FSCF), the French Archery Federation (FFTA), the French Mountain and Climbing Federation (FFME), and the French Strength Federation (FFForce) were affected by the cyberattack.
By exploiting the vulnerability of an IT service provider, the hacker stole the personal data of 4.5 million French people. Among the stolen information are names, first names, dates of birth, email addresses, and postal addresses. Several of the affected federations have confirmed the data leak, corroborating the cybercriminal's claims.
Databases are sold out
Unsurprisingly, the criminal, who operates under the pseudonym TheFrenchGuy, put up for sale all the data recovered from BreachForums, the hub of compromised information. A few weeks later, all the directories were sold, reports Zataz.
On his page on BreachForums, the hacker indicates that all the databases were indeed transferred in exchange for cryptocurrencies. Each directory could have been sold for an amount of around 1,500 euros in digital assets. On the forum, TheFrenchGuy indicated that this was the minimum price per unit. The hacker did not communicate his price in the event of a group purchase. Negotiations took place via private messages, on BreachForums or on Telegram.
Members of the eight affected federations can expect a wave of phishing attacks or attempts at identity theft in the near future. Everything suggests that the holder(s) of the data will use it to orchestrate scams.
As Zataz points out, the 2025 school year is set to be critical. Hackers could take advantage of the time when members renew their federation membership to contact them. Affected members risk receiving fraudulent emails or text messages pretending to be from their federation or other institutions. The messages could request payments, bank details or the installation of a virus.
A very busy hacker
The cybercriminal does not intend to stop there. At the same time, he also auctioned off the personal data of Sport-Découverte users. Nearly 500,000 people are affected by this new data leak. TheFrenchGuy seems determined to make money off the backs of the French. In addition, he has also shared data for free with other members of BreachForums. The hacker put online the data of users of profil-search.fr, specialized in recruitment, following a hack that occurred last month.
The data stolen from sports federations will increase the threats that already weigh on Internet users in France. Over the last few months, a mountain of institutions, brands and companies have been hacked. France even ranks 4th in the world among the most targeted countries, with 14 times more violations than in 2023, according to a study by SurfShark. It is estimated that eight out of ten French people have been victims of pirates.
Source: Zataz
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