France discloses FICOBA national bank account registry breach exposing 1.2 million accounts

The French Ministry of Finance disclosed a data breach affecting information tied to more than 1.2 million accounts in the national bank account registry known as FICOBA. The breach exposed records from a database containing information on bank accounts opened at French banking institutions. In late January a threat actor used credentials stolen from a civil servant with access to an interministerial information sharing platform. This access allowed the attacker to access part of the database. The compromised data includes bank identity details known as RIBs, international bank account numbers or IBANs, account holder identities, physical addresses and in some cases taxpayer identification numbers. The ministry said it acted immediately to restrict the threat actor access after detecting the incident. However it was unable to prevent the exposure of data linked to approximately 1.2 million accounts which may have been exfiltrated.