In what may be the biggest health data breach in France, the Health Ministry says that administrative details and medical notes on more than 15m people were hacked – days after hackers infiltrated the bank accounts of 1.2m people, reports AFP.
Top politicians were among the millions affected and whose details were now visible online, with some of the information including details on whether a patient was homosexual or had Aids.
The Ministry said the cyber breach, carried in late 2025, involved information from about 1 500 medical practices who had used software made by the Cegedim Sante company.
The data breach primarily involved patients’ names, phone numbers, and postal addresses, but for 169 000 patients there were doctors’ notes, “some of which may be sensitive data”, health authorities said.
They insisted, however, that no prescriptions or results of biological examinations had been involved.
The Ministry said the hack had been claimed but gave no details on the group.
Cegedim Sante made a criminal complaint over the hack in October 2025, saying the breach involved about 1 500 doctors out of some 3 800 who used the software.
The hack involved “15.8m administrative files (…) among which 165 000 contain a personal annotation by the doctor relating to sensitive information”, it said.
Gerome Billois, a cybersecurity expert at Wavestone Consultancy, said the leak could be “the biggest in France” in the health sector and could have “irreparable consequences”.
“Once health information that says: ‘You have Aids’ or ‘You have such and such a disease’ is released, you can never go back,” Billois told AFP.
Last month – on 18 February – the French Finance Ministry announced that a hacker had infiltrated a national bank database and consulted information on 1.2m accounts.
It said the hacker had used the stolen credentials of an official to access details that included account numbers, name of the holder and address.
France24 article – Hackers steal medical details of 15 million in France (Open access)
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