France’s government cybersecurity agency will reportedly investigate a large-scale hacking operation that targeted presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign days before the Sunday election.
A government official told The Associated Press that the Macron team requested that authorities bring in cybersecurity agency ANSSI to analyze the attack.
The official, who said it appeared to be a “very serious” breach, told AP that ANSSI is typically only called to investigate “massive and sophisticated” cyberattacks, and that the Macron hack appears to fit the description.
France’s electoral commission on Saturday warned the country’s media that publishing documents obtained during the hack could result in federal prosecution.
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“This attack has resulted in the publication of a number of important documents presented as having come from the information system of the candidate and the message accounts of certain of their campaign officials on certain social networks,” the CNCCEP, France’s presidential electoral authority, said in a statement reported by The Guardian.
The commission said that some documents released in the leak appeared to contain “false information” and urged media and internet users to “show a spirit of responsibility” by not publishing the documents before the election.
A tranche of documents were leaked online Friday, just hours before the start of a campaign blackout.
The timing of the document dump meant that neither Macron, a center-left candidate who is a favorite in polls to win the election, nor his far-right opponent Marine Le Pen had enough time to respond to the hacking.
Macron’s campaign confirmed Friday that it was hit by “a massive and coordinated hack” that attempted to publicize “various internal information.”