France announced a data breach affecting 1.2 million bank accounts.

On February 18, 2026, French authorities announced that unauthorized access to FICOBA, the national bank account database, had occurred at the end of January of this year, and that the personal data of approximately 1.2 million bank accounts had been accessed by malicious individuals.
 
The French Ministry of Economy issued a statement that the incident involved the misuse of a civil servant's login credentials, and the culprits were able to check the account details, the identity of the holder, the address, and in some cases, the tax identification number.
 
FICOBA is managed by the DGFIP and contains information on all bank accounts opened by banks in France.
 
According to the Ministry of Economy, since the end of January 2026, malicious individuals have been using the credentials of authorized civil servants to access some of the files, and immediate steps have been taken to stop the intrusion from expanding.
 
Affected users will be notified individually and banks have been instructed to alert their customers. The incident has been notified to the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) and a formal complaint has been lodged.
 
The authorities warned that the leakage could be used for identity theft, phishing attacks and other financial frauds, including fraudsters posing as bank staff to commit frauds.

Source:
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/france-reports-data-breach-affecting-12-million-bank-accounts/3834116#

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