French telecommunications company Bouygues Telecom was recently targeted in a cyberattack that resulted in the personal information of millions of customers getting compromised.
Bouygues is one of France’s largest telecom companies. According to its website, it has nearly 27 million mobile service customers.
The company discovered the cyberattack on August 4 and an investigation showed that the hackers gained access to information associated with some customers’ accounts, including contact details, contract data, and bank account numbers (IBAN). Both individuals and companies are impacted.
Bouygues informed customers that passwords and payment card data has not been compromised.
The company said the incident impacts 6.4 million customers. They are being notified via email or text message and urged to be on the lookout for fraudulent emails or calls requesting their information.
The telecom firm has reported the incident to local authorities and pointed out that the perpetrator faces up to five years in prison and a €150,000 ($175,000) fine.
SecurityWeek has not seen any known ransomware group taking credit for the attack on Bouygues.
Bouygues is not the only French telecom giant to have been targeted by hackers in recent weeks. In late July, Orange said a cyberattack had resulted in service disruptions, but the company found no evidence of customer or corporate data being exfiltrated.
Telecommunication companies can be a valuable target for both state-sponsored threat actors and profit-driven cybercriminals and many organizations in this sector have been targeted in recent years.
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