Retaliation Strike: 22-Year-Old Arrested After BreachForums Hacks French Ministry of Interior
French law enforcement authorities have arrested a 22-year-old man suspected of orchestrating a recent cyberattack against the country’s Ministry of the Interior. The incident occurred in mid-December and affected the ministry’s internal email servers. The Paris Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that the arrest took place on December 17 as part of an investigation led by a specialized cybercrime unit.
According to investigators, the suspect gained unauthorized access to an automated system used for processing personal data—an offense classified under French law as a crime committed as part of an organized group. The maximum penalty for such an offense carries a sentence of up to ten years in prison.
Officials noted that the detainee had previously been convicted of similar offenses earlier in 2025. The investigation remains ongoing and is being conducted by the national cybercrime unit. Authorities have stated that additional details will be released once the police interrogation is complete, a process that may last up to forty-eight hours.
The incident itself became public only days ago. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez reported that the network intrusion was detected overnight between December 11 and 12, during which attackers gained access to a number of internal files. While officials have not confirmed that any data was exfiltrated, they emphasized that security measures were immediately reinforced and system access policies were reassessed following the breach.
Almost simultaneously with the incident, activity resumed on the hacker forum BreachForums, which had previously been dormant. One of the platform’s administrators published a statement claiming responsibility for the attack on the ministry.
The message asserted that the intrusion was retaliation for the arrest of five other forum administrators earlier this year. The group presented what it described as evidence in the form of screenshots and issued an ultimatum to the government, demanding contact within a week to prevent the public release of allegedly stolen data.
The attackers claim to have obtained access to information on more than 16 million individuals from police archives. French authorities have so far declined to verify the authenticity of these claims. It also remains unclear whether the arrested individual is directly connected to BreachForums or to those behind the statement.
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