Intruder Breaches France's Tchap, Exposing 73,467 Accounts via User Takeover
Updated
Updated · Computerworld · Jun 12
Intruder Breaches France's Tchap, Exposing 73,467 Accounts via User Takeover
3 articles · Updated · Computerworld · Jun 12
Summary
73,467 Tchap users may have been affected after an intruder took over one government account and accessed public chat rooms on France’s sovereign messaging service.
DINUM said Tchap’s encryption was not broken; the breach stemmed from social engineering and human error, and the compromised user’s access has been blocked.
A post on X claiming responsibility said the attacker exposed 643,459 messages, 876 chat rooms and 59,386 media files totaling 13.51 GB, including references to “Diffusion Restreinte” documents.
825,000 users are on Tchap overall, but DINUM stressed that public rooms are visible to any user and warned staff not to share sensitive or confidential information there.
The incident undercuts Tchap’s role as a French-built alternative to WhatsApp meant to showcase digital sovereignty inside government communications.