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Macron Campaign Says It Was Target of ‘Massive’ Hacking Attack Macron Campaign Says It Was Target of ‘Massive’ Hacking Attack
(35 minutes later)
PARIS — The campaign staff of the French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron said on Friday evening that it had been targeted by a “massive and coordinated” hacking operation after internal campaign documents were published online on social media. PARIS — On the eve of the most consequential French election in decades, the campaign staff of the candidate Emmanuel Macron said on Friday evening that it had been targeted by a “massive and coordinated” hacking operation, one with the potential to destabilize the nation’s democracy before voters go to the polls on Sunday.
Mr. Macron’s staff said in a statement that authentic documents, including internal emails, accounting documents and contracts, had been published alongside fake documents “to sow doubt and disinformation.” The hacking, which involved a dump of campaign documents, including emails and accounting records, emerged hours before a legal prohibition on campaign communications went into effect — a prohibition that makes it extremely difficult for Mr. Macron to mitigate any damaging fallout before the runoff election, in which he faces the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
The statement said that the operation was “clearly” an attempt at “democratic destabilization” similar to what had occurred during the presidential campaign in the United States. The hacking immediately evoked comparisons to the United States election, in which American intelligence agencies concluded that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, had ordered an “influence campaign” to interfere with the election to benefit the Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump.
Earlier on Friday evening the campaign staff of Marine Le Pen, the other candidate in the Sunday runoff vote, said in a statement that her campaign website had faced “regular and targeted” attacks during the presidential campaign. In a statement, the Macron campaign said, “Intervening in the final hour of the official campaign, this operation is clearly a matter of democratic destabilization, as was seen in the United States during the last presidential campaign.”
In the statement, the Le Pen campaign said that the French authorities had investigated the attacks and this week arrested “a first hacker” who was “close to extreme-left circles” and who had admitted to being responsible for several attacks on Ms. Le Pen’s campaign website. The arrest occurred on French soil, the statement said. It said that the hackers had mixed fake documents along with authentic ones, “to sow doubt and misinformation.”
Reuters reported that about nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called Emleaks to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting. Earlier on Friday evening, Ms. Le Pen’s campaign staff said that its website had faced “regular and targeted” attacks during the campaign.
It also said that the French authorities had investigated the attacks and this week arrested “a first hacker” who was “close to extreme-left circles” and who admitted to being responsible for several attacks on Ms. Le Pen’s campaign website. The arrest occurred on French soil, the statement said.
Unlike Mr. Macron, however, it did not appear that Ms. Le Pen’s campaign documents had been stolen.
The Macron campaign said that the documents were obtained several weeks ago after the personal and professional emails of staff members at En Marche, his political movement, were hacked.
A report by a cybersecurity firm published on April 24 had said that Mr. Macron had been targeted by what appeared to be the same Russian operatives responsible for hacks of Democratic campaign officials before last year’s American presidential election.
Security researchers at the firm, Trend Micro, said that on March 15 they spotted a hacking group they believed to be a Russian intelligence unit target Mr. Macron’s campaign — sending emails to campaign officials and others with links to fake websites designed to bait them into turning over passwords.
But the statement by Mr. Macron’s campaign on Friday night did not make it clear whether the hackers identified by Trend Micro were the same ones behind the latest attack.
Candidates and their staff are prohibited by French electoral rules to campaign from midnight on Friday until the last polls close on Sunday, at 8 p.m. — meaning that they cannot give interviews in the news media, hold rallies, make speeches or issue statements.
The Macron campaign made its statement at 11:56 p.m. — four minutes before the legal prohibition on campaigning went into effect.
Numerama, a French online publication focusing on digital life, said that the hacked material appeared to have been disseminated through users of 4Chan, an online bulletin board. They shared nine gigabytes worth of documents and emails — “a jumble of what appears to be the contents of a hard drive and several emails of co-workers and En Marche political officials.”
“It will take to time to sift through it all, but at first glance, they seem to be utterly mundane,” Numerama said after analyzing the data. “One finds memos, bills, loans of amounts that are hardly over-the-top, recommendations and other reservations, amidst, of course, exchanges that are strictly personal and private — personal notes on the rain and sunshine, a confirmation email for the publishing of a book, reservation of a table for friends, etc.”
Some of the documents did not appear to have any link to Mr. Macron, Numerama reported.
The National Commission for Control of the Electoral Campaign, a regulatory body, said it was contacted by the Macron campaign on Friday night. The commission, which planned to meet on Saturday about the hacking, urged the news media to refrain from reporting on stolen information.
“It therefore asks the media, and in particular their websites, not to report on the content of these data, recalling that the dissemination of false information is liable to fall within the scope of the law — in particular criminal law,” the commission said.
The Macron campaign appealed to journalists not to do the hackers’ bidding by widely publicizing the emails.
“We call upon the news outlets that wish to report on this operation to shoulder their responsibilities, in all good conscience,” the campaign said. “Indeed, this is not a simple hacking operation but well and truly an attempt to destabilize the French presidential election. It is therefore important to consider the nature of the leaked documents, to be fully aware of the fact that a large part of them are purely and simply fake, and the appropriateness of giving an echo to this destabilization operation.”
Gérard Araud, the French ambassador to Washington, said of the attack: “It was to be expected. The last-ditch offensive benefiting a candidacy favored by a foreign government.”
Ms. Le Pen’s campaign was not gloating, but one of her top allies, Florian Philippot, the vice president of the National Front, asked: “Will the #Macronleaks learn things that investigative journalism has deliberately killed,” referring to his argument that the mainstream news media has been biased against Ms. Le Pen. “Scary, this democratic shipwreck.”
Mr. Macron, 39, an independent centrist and a former economy minister who is making his first run for elected office, has been favored in the polls over Ms. Le Pen, 48, a lawyer and political heir to the movement her father, now estranged, founded in 1972.
On Wednesday, the two candidates confronted each other head-to-head in a vicious debate that more resembled an American-style shoutfest than the Descartian discourse that French voters are more accustomed to. Ms. Le Pen, who was relentless in her attacks, was widely judged the loser.
A post-debate poll, by the firm Ipsos — which was very accurate in its projections before the first round of the elections on April 23 — found Mr. Macron’s lead over Ms. Le Pen had widened, 63 percent to 37 percent.
But Ms. Le Pen could benefit on Sunday if poor and disaffected suburban voters stay home, or if on-the-fence voters who are unenthusiastic about their choices decide to abstain.