France arrests three for theft of 43 million jobseeker files

Paris: French police have arrested three suspects for stealing personal data on 43 million people from a jobseekers' database, prosecutors said Tuesday.

The three, all in their early 20s, were arrested Sunday and were to be charged by an investigating magistrate Tuesday, the cybercrime investigation unit said in a statement.

After they were tracked down using "technical and telephone" means, searches at the suspects' homes confirmed some were "swindling people using the 'phishing' technique", investigators said.

Unemployment agency France Travail said on March 13 it had fallen victim to a massive data leak between February 6 and March 5.

Prosecutors said the attackers gained access to the data using login details for people working at an agency that supports disabled people seeking work.

They estimated that "43 million pieces of personal information" were downloaded.

That included names, date and place of birth, physical and email addresses, telephone numbers, social security numbers and login names for the unemployment service.

France Travail said at the time of the leak that those affected included active jobseekers as well as people who had used the service over the last 20 years.

Bank details and passwords were not among the stolen data, it added.

Authorities have said the France Travail data theft was likely not related to a massive 48-hour cyberattack against government network infrastructure last week.

Civil Service Minister Stanislas Guerini blamed pro-Russia hackers for the attempt to block communications which he said had failed.