After football and tennis, sailing. The French Sailing Federation (FFVoile) told AFP on Thursday that it had suffered a “data leak” concerning “several hundred thousand” of licensees and ex-licensees, affirming however that no banking or medical data had been compromised. A mishap also suffered by other federations, such as the FFF or the FFT, in recent weeks.
FFVoile “recently identified a data leak affecting its license management platform” resulting “from the fraudulent use of a compromised club account”. “This unauthorized access allowed, through a complex mechanism, the extraction of personal data concerning several hundred thousand” of licensees and ex-licensees, she detailed.
“No compromise of banking data”
“At this stage of the investigations, no evidence indicates an intrusion into the IT infrastructure of FFVoile, nor a compromise of the platform’s authentication mechanisms, nor a leak of passwords,” she also indicated.
The body affirms, however, that “the incident did not result in any compromise of medical or banking data, and no password was affected”. The “extracted data” were for example surnames, first names, dates of birth, postal addresses, email addresses or even telephone numbers.
FFVoile has “declared the incident to the competent authorities” and is carrying out “an in-depth analysis to identify the exact extent of the leak”. The federation also explains that it has “reinforced its security measures”. “A complaint is being filed,” she added.
Very targeted sports federations
In recent weeks, several other sports federations have been victims of similar attacks. In January, swimming filed a complaint after a theft of data targeting its administrative management platform, golf announced a complaint after the theft of “certain data” from its members, and tennis reported an “act of cyber-maliciousness” on the platform used by the clubs.
Before them, the French shooting federation had also suffered a cyberattack, followed by attacks and theft of firearms to the detriment of several of its members.
In December, the Ministry of Sports also suffered a cyberattack, with 3.5 million households “affected”, but which would not have targeted sensitive data such as passwords or banking details.
