1,416,000 records in the FNC and OFB data leak

On 20 January 2026, the French National Hunters Federation (FNC) — the national umbrella body coordinating France's departmental hunting federations — was hit by a cyberattack in which intruders exfiltrated personal data tied to the validation of hunting permits for roughly 1.4 million people. A few days later, attackers also struck the national hunting-permit management application run by the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB), which confirmed its own breach on 30 January, making the two incidents appear coordinated against hunting-related institutions.

The compromise was a data breach and exfiltration rather than ransomware: a dataset of about 27 GB was put up for sale on the dark web for roughly €1,200. The exposed records covered names, dates of birth, federal/permit identification numbers and details related to hunting permits, including for the OFB system nationality and exam registration and results data.

Exposed data categories included:

• Full names and dates of birth
• 799,117 full postal addresses
• 455,103 phone numbers
• 340,849 email addresses
• Federal identification numbers and hunting-permit details

Both institutions stressed that no banking data, health information or weapons-ownership records were compromised. The FNC filed a complaint on 23 January with the cyber unit of the national gendarmerie and notified France's data protection authority (CNIL), while the OFB warned affected individuals to be vigilant against phishing and impersonation attempts. Security experts flagged a heightened risk of targeted rural burglaries given that the data could help identify firearm owners.