The French travel agency Voyageurs du Monde was the victim of a cyberattack last month. Consequence: thousands of passports end up on the dark web.
On May 16, this tour operator specializing in tailor-made experiences suffered a major data theft following a computer attack. According to our colleagues from France infoit would be the work of the Lockbit group, a group of Russian-speaking hackers who previously attacked Macs and the Thales group, in the case of France.
Voyageurs du monde refused to pay the ransom, the hackers did not hesitate
Lockbit says it has posted some 10,000 passports and a lot of confidential data on the darknet. The hackers proceeded as usual. They first submitted a ransom demand to the tour operator, which was categorically refused by the latter, as recommended by the cyber authorities.
It was then that passport data relating to collective trips organized by the company was published by the Lockbit hackers. The majority of passports and other identity documents posted online belong to French customers.
If the theft of data was noted on May 16, 2023, Voyageurs du monde had already resumed most of its activity on May 24, strengthening the security of its systems in passing. In its defence, the company nevertheless specifies that no sensitive information is in the hands of hackers (understand bank data here).
The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation
The Paris prosecutor’s office announced that it had opened an investigation on Monday June 5 to try to shed light on this case. The heads of ” association of criminals with a view to committing a crime or misdemeanor punishable by five years’ imprisonment ” and D'” organized gang extortion were mentioned. On the cyber level, these are those of ” hindrance to the operation of a STAD ” (automated data processing system) and ” fraudulent access and maintenance in a STAD which were brandished by the public prosecutor. The judicial police and the national gendarmerie will carry out the investigations.
Customers were notified from the 1er June through an e-mail sent by the president of Voyageurs du monde, Jean-François Rial.
And precisely, if you are a customer of this tour operator, we can only encourage you to be careful. With such information, hacker group customers might engage in identity theft and conduct various scams or cyber scams. In particular, they could subscribe to certain financial services and take out loans.
Source : France info
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