Data Breach at French Telecom Giant Bouygues Affects Millions of Customers

Bouygues Telecom, the third-largest mobile carrier in France, has confirmed a significant cyberattack that has resulted in a data breach affecting millions of its customers. The incident, detected on August 4, saw unauthorized access to personal information belonging to 6.4 million customer accounts.

In an official statement released on its corporate website, Bouygues Telecom detailed the scale of the breach. While the company has not specified the exact timeframe for when the cyberattack was remediated, it acknowledged that intruders gained access to sensitive customer data. The telecommunications giant, which serves approximately 26.9 million mobile customers in France, has reported the incident to France’s data protection authority, CNIL.

A dedicated page established by Bouygues Telecom for victims of the cyberattack outlines the types of compromised data. This includes customers’ contact details, contractual information, civil status data (or company details for professional subscribers), and crucially, IBANs (International Bank Account Numbers). This exposure of financial data raises significant concerns for affected individuals.

Further scrutiny arose from the discovery that a page on Bouygues’ website intended to inform victims of the breach contained a hidden “noindex” tag within its source code. This tag is designed to prevent search engines from indexing the page, potentially making it difficult for affected customers or the public to find information about the incident through web searches. A spokesperson for Bouygues Telecom did not provide immediate comment when asked for details about the cyberattack or the reason behind the page’s hidden status.

This breach at Bouygues Telecom occurs shortly after another major French telecommunications company, Orange, reported its own cyberattack. Orange, the country’s largest carrier and a global telecommunications leader, warned its customers of potential disruptions on July 29 as it worked to isolate affected services. Orange serves a vast customer base of over 290 million worldwide, highlighting a concerning trend of increasing cyber threats within the European telecom sector.