Hacker Claims Massive France Education Ministry Breach Exposed 346 Million Records

A hacker says he broke into France’s national education system. He claims to have taken about 43GB of data. That data allegedly touches hundreds of millions of records.

The people affected would include students, teachers, staff, and their families. This claim surfaced weeks after French officials admitted a real cyberattack hit the same ministry.

What the Hacker Says He Took

A cybersecurity commentator named Seb, known online as @seblatombe, shared the claim on X on August 17. He reported that the leaked dataset holds close to 346 million lines of data. That information allegedly spans more than 20 years.

The hacker says the files include names and birth dates. He also claims they hold home addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. Academic records show up too, according to the claim. Grades, assignments, and administrative files round out the list.

Some of the exposed data may belong to minors. Their parents or guardians could also be at risk. The hacker says he found identifiers tied to about 1.22 million students. He also claims to have found 4.35 million records linked to staff members. Roughly 602,000 accounts allegedly came with hashed passwords attached, based on reporting from Tom’s Guide France.

The hacker described how he says he got in. He claims a VPN connection gave him a path into several internal systems. Staff reportedly spotted the intrusion early. But access was not shut down right away. That gap allegedly let him pull out more data over several days.

So far, French officials have not confirmed these newer numbers. Major French news outlets have not verified the full 43GB claim either. The story is still developing.

The Breach that Officials did Confirm

One part of this story is not in doubt. France’s Ministry of National Education confirmed a cyberattack on July 25. French media outlets, including reports linked to AFP, covered the incident. The attack reportedly started after someone compromised a staff member’s professional account.

That breach hit a system tied to staff training records. It may have held personal and work details for a large number of ministry employees. Names, addresses, and phone numbers were reportedly part of the exposure. Social Security numbers may have been included too, according to media reports.

The ministry said the exposure could reach back to 2001. Anyone who worked at an academy since then might be affected. Officials had not pinned down an exact number of victims when they first spoke. They did note one relief. The system in question did not hold banking details, passwords, or student information.

This was not the first education-sector scare this year in France. Earlier incidents already exposed data tied to hundreds of thousands of staff members. A separate event affected student records too. Public agencies keep drawing attacks because they store so much personal data.

The UK experienced a similar breach in late July when the Department for Education was hacked by the same group, ExfilSquad, that had targeted UK police databases. The attack exposed approximately 607,000 records from the department’s help desk and Turing Scheme portal, including names, job titles, email addresses, and phone numbers.

Why the Two Claims Don’t Match Yet

The new hacker’s claim is far bigger than what officials confirmed in July. That gap raises a real question. Was the July breach actually worse than first reported? Or is this a separate, exaggerated claim?

Right now, no one can say for sure. The alleged 43GB dataset, the 346 million lines, and the millions of exposed identities are still unverified. Investigators have not confirmed these details as fact.

The confirmed July breach and the hacker’s newer allegations sit apart for now. French authorities and cybersecurity researchers still need to dig deeper. They must check whether this new dataset is real. If it is, they need to measure how much data actually left the system.