SIA: data leak of 62,511 firearms in France

On 28 March 2026, France's Système d'Information sur les Armes (SIA) — the national firearms registry operated by the Interior Ministry — became the subject of a data leak exposing records on 62,511 weapons and their owners. A threat actor using the alias "HexDex" listed the database for sale on the dark web.

According to the Interior Ministry, the breach did not stem from a compromise of the SIA platform itself but from malicious access to the account of a company authorised to use the system (such as an armourer or dealer). The attacker used those credentials to extract commercial data held in the account, which included firearm and owner information.

The exposed records reportedly contained:

• Weapon details: type, brand, model, serial number and RGA reference (the listing cited a mix of carbines, hunting rifles, pump-action shotguns and handguns)
• Owner identity data: full names, dates and places of birth, postal addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and SIA numbers
• Movement histories: sales, transfers, repairs and destructions

The Interior Ministry confirmed the incident and referred it to the Paris prosecutor, whose cybercrime unit (BL2C) opened an investigation into its origin. The compromised account was disabled, affected owners were contacted individually, and from 1 April 2026 all companies connecting to the SIA were required to use two-factor authentication. The Ministry stated the SIA information system itself had not been breached.