LFI, Renaissance, PCF: what we know about suspected cyberattacks against several political parties

The issue of computer security is making its way into the presidential campaign. This weekend, several political parties were victims of cyberattacks, according to the specialized site FrenchBreaches. According to this source, three are concerned: the Communist Party (PCF), La France insoumise (LFI) and Renaissance. Data, including addresses and telephone numbers, were allegedly stolen. If the PCF confirmed this information, the two other parties, contacted by Le Figaro, assured on the other hand that no intrusion was detected.

The PCF would have been the first affected. Friday evening, the left party itself announced that it had suffered a data leak from its members and sympathizers file, without specifying the number of people concerned. The PCF was alerted by the National Information Systems Security Agency (Anssi). He claims to have “immediately initiated the securing of its systems, its IT tools and its databases”. A complaint was also filed. “A cybercriminal using the pseudonym ChimeraZ announced on a forum the sale of a database attributed to the site pcf.fr. According to its announcement, this database would contain 194,641 records concerning 183,363 people, including 113,971 telephone numbers and 77,076 e-mail addresses, for a volume of 40 MB (megabytes Editor's note),” informs the FrenchBreaches site. The PCF affirms that “at this stage of the investigations, no banking data has been compromised”, because the file concerned contains neither bank details nor means of payment.

The same hacker, ChimeraZ, also allegedly targeted the centrist Renaissance party. He claims the theft of approximately 4.1 million pieces of data, including 373,906 addresses, door-to-door information and statistics associated with some 9.6 million voters. According to FrenchBreaches, these lines of code would contain postal addresses, GPS coordinates, first and last names, political functions and data on the organization of electoral campaigns. However, “the authenticity and exact origin of the files remain to be established,” adds the site. Within Renaissance, it is claimed that “audits do not show any intrusion into our systems or our database.” And to add that “the elements described correspond to public information, either available via INSEE, or displayed on our activist platform, publicly viewable. They appear to have been collected by automated extraction from these pages. No email address, telephone number or postal address appears there.

“No personal data of members of France Insoumise has been disclosed,” says Bompard

LFI also denied having been the victim of a cyberattack. “This Saturday, October 24, France Insoumise was informed of the circulation of a set of files presented as coming from our systems. An internal audit was carried out immediately. Contrary to what is indicated in certain messages, no personal data of members of France Insoumise has been disclosed,” wrote the party’s national coordinator, Manuel Bompard, on X. This release immediately prompted an update from FrenchBreaches. “The files do contain personal data: 911 separate email addresses and 5016 separate telephone numbers, including contact details for local organizers. We also identified 12,959 door-to-door recordings, associated with activist names or pseudonyms, sectors, dates and electoral campaigns. This information cannot be assimilated to simple public addresses from INSEE,” the site responded in a comment.