France's finance ministry endured a sustained hacking campaign from December 2010 through at least early March 2011, Paris-Match reported Monday. Attackers focused primarily on the Treasury directorate and on files connected to France's G20 presidency.
Patrick Pailloux, director general of France's national cybersecurity agency, said the hackers were pursuing documents covering G20 affairs and international economic matters. He characterized the perpetrators as organized professionals and described the breach as the most significant cyber operation ever carried out against the French state.
More than 150 ministry computers were compromised and a substantial volume of documents extracted. Individual ministry staff were not targeted; the attackers focused on institutional records. Officials noted that some stolen data had been redirected through servers based in China, though the ultimate origin of the attacks had not been established.
The ministry, known as Bercy, filed a formal complaint with French courts and domestic intelligence services opened an inquiry. The ministry had no comment Monday morning.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in March 2011, in its own words.