France’s national agency for managing IDs and passports suffered a data breach last week

The French government has confirmed that France Titles, also known as the National Agency for Secure Securities (ANTS), suffered a security breach last week. France Titles revealed that it detected a data breach on April 15. The next day, a hacker claimed responsibility for the breach and claimed to have up to 19 million records that he was trying to sell. According to Computer beepingthe data does not yet appear to have been widely disclosed.

France Titles is responsible for the country’s identification and registration materials, including driving licenses, national identity cards, passports and immigration documents. Compromised data includes full names, email addresses, dates of birth, account IDs, login credentials, phone numbers and postal addresses. The department said that although the breach did not allow access to its portals, the exposed information could be used for phishing attacks or other illicit actions. The announcement urged caution regarding any suspicious communications claiming to come from the agency.