The French Government's Messaging App Has Been Hacked

Problems for Tchap, the encrypted messaging platform of the French government. DINUM, which manages the country's digital affairs, has confirmed that a hacker used a compromised account to infiltrate the application, developed by DINUM in collaboration with ANSSI (the French Agency for Cybersecurity) in 2018.

What Happened

The app has become very widespread in recent months after the government made it mandatory for communications among public employees. From the initial available information, it seems that a hacker managed to gain access to the messaging platform using a compromised user account. The CNIL, the data protection authority, has also been alerted due to the possible exposure of personal data shared by some users.

DINUM clarified: "At this stage, the account from which the malicious requests originated has been identified. It has been immediately blocked to remove the attacker's persistent access and allow for a thorough analysis of the data they were able to access. The investigation is ongoing, including the examination of event logs, to identify the conversations the attacker may have accessed and the nature of the exfiltrated data."

It is worth noting that DINUM did not provide any further details on the matter while a hacker claimed responsibility for the attack and shared a sample of the stolen files, stating they gained access to the service by exploiting a social engineering attack. Among documents and multimedia files shared by public employees via Tchap, the hacker is said to have around 13.5 GB of material.