France Ranks Number One in Hacking: Massive Data Breaches Hit National Tax Agency, Immigration Office, and Ministry of Education

00:00 Intro
00:07 France Upended After National Tax Agency 'Completely Gutted'
02:38 Hacked, Hacked, and Hacked Again
04:22 Surpassing the U.S. to Rank Number One in Hacking Incidents?
05:34 How Did France Become Easy Prey for Hackers?

This is Paris. Today, we are going to talk about hacking. Although it is happening in another country, it is so outrageous that I wanted to share it with you.

1. France Upended After National Tax Agency 'Completely Gutted'
The French National Tax Agency has been hacked. It is not that the physical safe was breached, but rather information security was compromised, leaking the personal data of taxpayers. A total of 678,000 people were affected. Far beyond just names and phone numbers, specific tax-related information such as income, tax rates, and family composition was leaked. What is absurd is that this was first discovered at the end of June. That was two months ago, yet it was only last week that the public was informed. Moreover, it was not announced proactively by the National Tax Agency; it was only after the hacker publicly stated last week, "I hacked the French National Tax Agency, stole the information of 678,000 people, and will sell it on the dark web," that the agency realized, "Oh, is that so? Our information has been breached." When they scrambled to investigate, they confirmed there were signs of external attacks back in late June. So they blocked the external intrusion, but only blocked it without checking whether any data had actually been leaked, and simply brushed it under the rug. One of the tax agency's excuses is that the hacker did not steal everything at once to avoid getting caught, but rather siphoned it off little by little, making it difficult to detect the data leak. With the situation now urgent, the hacker publicly revealed a few days ago that they sold the information to two people on the dark web. The money amounted to several thousand euros, which is a few million to over ten million won in Korean currency. They also claim that other buyers are continuing to approach them. The National Tax Agency stated that they will contact all victims to inform them of this fact and urge caution. However, it is uncertain how quickly France, notorious for its sluggish administration, will actually move. The problem is that because very specific tax information was stolen, much more sophisticated scams than simple phishing can be orchestrated. For example, they could say, "Your income tax came out to this amount, and you paid this much a while ago. However, a refund is now available. Please come and claim your refund." When they accurately state the exact income tax amount and date you paid, it becomes very easy to be tricked into thinking, "Ah, this is from the National Tax Agency." The moment you click the refund application link, your actual bank account gets wiped out. The possibility of high-difficulty scams like this has increased significantly, and if something like this happened in our country, it would cause absolute chaos. In fact, if even a single such damage case occurred, it would not be easy for the head of the National Tax Agency to keep their position.

2. Hacked, Hacked, and Hacked Again
However, what is truly absurd is something else entirely. This is not a one-time occurrence. In France these days, public institutions and national information websites get hacked almost routinely if you look into it. Let us recap just this year. In January, the French Immigration Office was hacked. 2.1 million foreigner records were leaked. In March, the French Ministry of Education was hacked. Information on 243,000 teachers was leaked. In April, the Ministry of Education was hacked again. Information on 3.5 million students was leaked. This also included 7.2 million report cards. Also in April, ANTS, the official national identity document issuance agency, was hacked. 11.7 million accounts were compromised. An institution that issues government-certified documents, including driver licenses, passports, and foreigner residence permits, was breached. In June, a secure messenger used by government officials was hacked, leaking the information of 73,467 officials. Then in July, the Ministry of Education was hacked yet again—making it the third time this year—and this time they have not even figured out the scale of the damage yet. Furthermore, there was this National Tax Agency hacking incident, which occurred in June but was announced in August. In fact, the ANTS hacking incident back in April had massive repercussions. People were very angry because their identity documents could be forged and used by someone else. At that time, the website was paralyzed for over a month to fix that issue. That was also inconvenient. I had applied for my driver's license back then, and the license issuance, which normally takes six months, was delayed even further because of this. Following the ANTS hacking incident, the French government announced it would spend 200 million euros, approximately 320 billion won in our currency, to bolster security. Yet the Ministry of Education, which had already been hit before, was hit again, and this time even the National Tax Agency was breached.

3. Surpassing the U.S. to Rank Number One in Hacking Incidents?
Because of this situation, France has added another dishonorable record to its name. In terms of the number of hacking victims—or more precisely, the number of hacked accounts—France ranked 4th in the world in 2024. That rose two steps to 2nd place globally in 2025. Based on the first quarter of this year, 23.45 million cases were leaked. It still ranks 2nd in the world. Where is 1st place? The United States, with 60 million cases. The U.S. is not doing all that great either. However, the story changes when we correct for the distortion caused by absolute figures being higher simply because the U.S. population is about 5 times larger than France's. If calculated by the number of hacking occurrences per 100,000 people, France stands at 35,164 cases, while the U.S. stands at 17,637 cases. The U.S. drops to less than half of France, making France the overwhelming number one. Already, half of all hacking incidents occurring in Europe take place in France. Looking solely at hacking accidents, France has gone beyond being number one in Europe to become number one in the world. Until our historical Coupang hacking incident last year where over 30 million accounts were compromised, we were below one-third or one-half of France's level, and hacking targeting government or public institutions was especially much more minimal.

4. How Did France Become Easy Prey for Hackers?
So why has France become such easy prey for hackers, turning into a sloppy warehouse that gets raided whenever they feel like it? Various analyses are coming out regarding this, and the one that made the most sense was this: It is a well-known fact that Europe, including France, is lagging behind in digitalization. They are belatedly pushing for digitalization, and government websites are no exception. Some aspects even feel more convenient than in our country. However, the problem is that while they hurriedly digitalized the front end providing services, the back end protecting it lacked proper management. Moreover, public officials using the systems reportedly lack adequate security awareness, leading to the leakage of login credentials and other information. In the meantime, they have become easy prey, and hackers are raiding them left and right. France aims to launch a national digital agency next year. The intent is to gather previously scattered security-related functions into one place and manage them systematically. It remains to be seen whether France, a country holding the disgraceful title of number one in hacking damage, can wash away that stigma.

(Reported by Kwon Yeongin | Produced by Shin Heesuk | Video by Kim Sinae | Video Editing by Hong Jinyoung | Design by Sumin | Produced by SBS Digital News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.