Breaking down the France Travail cyberattack: a lesson in the importance of strong authentication

The announcement of the potential leak of 43 million user accounts from France Travail, formerly Pôle Emploi (the French public employment service), shook the cybersecurity world. Yet this attack did not result from a complex technical flaw, but from an unfortunately common vulnerability: people. Breaking down this incident reveals crucial lessons about IT security and the effectiveness of simple preventive measures.

Social engineering: the main attack vector

The attack took place between February 6 and March 5. A hacker posing as an IT technician phoned agents at Cap Emploi, an association with legitimate access to the France Travail database. Using a spoofed phone number and social engineering, the attacker persuaded an agent to hand over their login credentials and passwords. This legitimate access allowed the hacker to log in to the system and browse the database, without having to exploit a technical vulnerability such as an SQL injection.

It took five weeks to detect the attack, which highlights how insidious this type of attack is. The stolen data (last names, first names, email addresses, phone numbers) is a treasure trove for hackers, who sell it on the dark web and use it for even more targeted and convincing phishing and identity theft attacks.

Measures that could have prevented the attack

This attack could have been avoided if basic security measures, recommended for a long time, had been put in place.

  • Strong authentication: Social engineering worked because a simple password was enough to access the system. Adding a second authentication factor (such as an SMS code, an authenticator app or a smart card) would have made access impossible for the hacker, even with the stolen password.
  • IP filtering: Another simple but effective measure would have been to restrict database access to the IP addresses of France Travail offices and its partners. Even with the password, the attacker would not have been able to log in from outside.
  • Access segmentation: Instead of granting full access to the database, user rights should have been segmented and limited to the data they actually needed, for example by department or type of file. This would have considerably limited the impact of the attack.

Kiwi Backup: the last line of defense against disasters

This attack is a reminder of the three essential pillars of IT security: user training, system updates and data backup. Although backup does not prevent information leaks, it remains an essential safety net against other risks, such as ransomware that destroys data.

Kiwi Backup is an offsite, immutable backup solution that protects data even if the information system is compromised. It offers a 90-day history by default, long enough to detect past attacks. Our solution is fully automated, high-performance and monitored, which guarantees that backups actually work. By choosing Kiwi Backup, you make sure you have a robust line of defense to preserve the integrity of your data in the event of a disaster, because a backup that does not work is useless.

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