After hackers successfully penetrated the computer systems of the Canadian federal government, and after McAfee revealed the Night Dragon cyberattack against global oil, gas, and petrochemical companies it seems to be France’s turn to have their computers infiltrated by hackers in search of governmental confidential information. The target was the French Finance Ministry, and according to the current Minister of Budget (interviewed by Europe-1 – in French), “it was the information about G-20 that interested the attackers.”

In total, over 150 computers in the ministry have been infiltrated through targeted spear-phishing emails containing a malicious attachment. First detected 2 months ago, it seems the investigators from the General Secretariat of Defense and National Security (SGDSN) were able to use a variety of lures to trace suspect exchanges between the compromised computers and some remote servers that were driving the attack. A Ministry senior official who wishes to remain unnamed added that some of the compromised data was redirected to sites in China.

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