An 18-year-old suspect indicted in the case of tax hacking by the Zerobytes group

An 18-year-old man, suspected by the courts of being one of the members of the “Zerobytes” computer hacker group and of having participated in attacks against the tax authorities this summer, was indicted and placed in pre-trial detention, the Paris prosecutor's office announced to AFP on Friday. A second suspect, aged under 16, was also arrested and taken into police custody, but then released, the prosecution said after information from Franceinfo. Investigators will now exploit his computer equipment.

The tax hack, which occurred at the end of June and the end of July and claimed by the Zerobytes hacker group, led to the theft of data, some of it sensitive, of at least 678,000 individuals and professionals, according to the General Directorate of Public Finances (DGFiP). In mid-August, the government took up the matter, Sébastien Lecornu requesting an audit from the national information systems security agency (Anssi) and the Minister of Public Accounts David Amiel apologizing to the affected taxpayers.

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An investigation opened from July 31

On Friday, the Paris prosecutor's office clarified that it had opened an investigation upon "receipt of the first complaints", on July 31, and therefore before the claim of the attack, made widely public. It was entrusted to the Anti-Cybercrime Office (Ofac). The 18-year-old man was arrested on August 18. Seasoned hacker, known to the police, he had already been indicted twice, in two cases of computer attacks committed in 2023 and 2024, while he was still a minor. He has been under judicial supervision ever since.