The news came only days after authorities said the details of 1.2 million French bank accounts had been hacked
LOIC VENANCEFrance's health ministry said Friday that administrative details and medical notes on more than 15 million people had been hacked.
The announcement came only days after officials warned that the details of 1.2 million French bank accounts had been hacked using the credentials of an official.
The France 2 television channel, which revealed the medical hack, said top politicians were among the millions affected and that the details were now visible online.
It said that some of the information hacked and since seen online included details on whether a patient was homosexual or had AIDS.
The health ministry said the hack, 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", the ministry said.
It 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. Cegedim said the breach involved about 1,500 doctors out of some 3,800 who used the software.
Cegedim said it was "supporting its clients and their patients as much as possible" and would "fully cooperate with the authorities".
The hack involved "15.8 million 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 the 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.
The French finance ministry announced on February 18 that a hacker had gained access to a national bank database and consulted information on 1.2 million accounts.
It said the hacker had used the stolen credentials of an official to access details including account numbers, name of the holder and address.
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Originally published on doc.afp.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
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