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The campaign staff of Emmanuel Macron, one of the two candidates in France's presidential election run-off, claim to have been targeted by a massive hacking operation that leaked sensitive documents:
On the eve of the most consequential French presidential election in decades, the staff of the centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron said late Friday that the campaign 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.
The digital attack, which involved a dump of campaign documents including emails and accounting records, emerged hours before a legal prohibition on campaign communications went into effect. While the leak may be of little consequence, the timing 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, who has pledged to pull France out of the euro and hold a referendum to leave the European Union.
French authorities recently arrested a suspect who admitted to attacking the campaign website for the other candidate, Marine Le Pen.
Also at the Washington Post, CNN, BBC, and Reuters.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 06 2017, @12:25PM (6 children)
I think this is a low profile operation, if it were some secret service level hacking they would have done it at least one week earlier, there is not enough time to get the public opinion moved by whatever content was leaked. Even if it were a bombshell, because you need time to check a little facts out.
Might even be a false flag, to put Macron in the role of victim.
Personally after the charade of Tsipras I am not much convinced either candidate can really affect the system, but whatever.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Saturday May 06 2017, @01:38PM (4 children)
Given there is several GB of data included in the leak that seems a bit far-fetched. That data would have had to have come from somewhere, and either generating it from scratch or sanitizing actual inboxes to ensure nothing you don't want in the public domain is included would be a non-trivial task. You'd also have to trust all those involved not to reveal that the leak was faked, or to leave any evidence in the leak that it was a fake, which would be a major risk.
Timing and actual source wise, you're probably right with your first thought; it doesn't make much sense as an attempt to smear Macron as there's not really enough time to go through the data, find anything suitable, and make it public in time to really influence the result - although I'm sure those who don't support Macron are going to try. Or maybe the "state actors" have only just broken in and have adopted a "better late than never" approach, in which case that probably says more about how competent Macron's IT security people compared to others we could mention. Personally though, I'm more inclined to think that is just some random hacker who stumbled on the data and dumped it into the public domain more for the lulz rather than any specific attempt to influence the election, although that may have played a smaller part as well.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 06 2017, @01:58PM (1 child)
Timing and actual source wise, you're probably right with your first thought; it doesn't make much sense as an attempt to smear Macron as there's not really enough time to go through the data, find anything suitable, and make it public in time to really influence the result
There doesn't have to be anything to smear him with. LePen's really trailing in the polls, not ~3% like trump was but ~25%. They've got nothing to lose so it makes sense they would try everything they can no matter how unlikely because saving it for after the election guarantees it won't make a difference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 06 2017, @07:02PM
...any yet somehow I doubt I'll be able to contain my unsurprise when LePen wins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by wisnoskij on Saturday May 06 2017, @02:36PM
Well it might of just been a result of him doing so well in the election so far. Most people do not want to break the law and go to jail, but when faced with the imminent election of someone you deem a criminal the punishment might seem more bearable.
Alternatively, this was all pre-planned with exactness. And the point of the leaks was to maximize chaos. To setup the indictment of Macron but let him win the election, so they spend the next year or whatever with a leader spending all his time trying to cover his ass and not leading and then some interim leader who just takes over after Macron is thrown out or resigns.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 06 2017, @11:27PM
What are you talking about, you jackass? A false flag doesn't mean it didn't happen. You sound like one of these confused slaves that acts like known fucking facts are conspiracy theories made up by loons. Pull your head out of your flu shot taking ass. The op is saying they may have simply did it to make macron the victim. That's it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 06 2017, @10:23PM
Bingo! [youtube.com]