CAF’s Vacaf system victim of massive data leak

France has once again been hit by a cyberattack. A “cybersecurity incident” in fact affected the Vacaf vacation assistance system of the Family Allowance Funds on Friday, with “a leak concerning beneficiaries’ data,” the National Family Allowance Fund (Cnaf) said on Saturday without giving figures.

“Yesterday evening [Friday] a leak concerning the data of beneficiaries of this system was reported,” indicates the Cnaf in a press release. The organization specifies that “access to the vacaf.org platform was quickly suspended” in order to “secure the environment and prevent any further unauthorized access”, and that “a crisis unit was activated”.

CAF payments are not impacted

“The first analyzes already confirm that neither the banking data of beneficiaries, nor the passwords for access to CAF online services are among the data concerned,” adds Cnaf. Furthermore, this incident “has no impact on the payment of benefits by the CAF”.

According to the specialized site FrenchBreaches, the author of the cyberattack claims “around 1.2 million beneficiary files”, a figure that the organization has not confirmed. Cnaf specifies on the other hand that “as soon as it has a consolidated vision of the scope of the incident” it “will individually inform the people concerned and communicate to them useful recommendations to protect themselves against possible attempts at fraud, phishing or identity theft”.

The CNIL informed

A complaint will also be filed “in the coming hours”, according to the press release, which specifies that the National Agency for Information Systems Security (Anssi) and the French authority for the protection of personal data, the CNIL, have been informed.

The Vacaf system allows eligible families to benefit from financial aid to go on vacation or finance the participation of their children in stays and summer camps.