Email hack hits Macron on poll eve
REPUBLISHING LEAKED DATA A CRIMINAL OFFENCE, FRENCH ELECTION PANEL WARNS
France sought to keep a computer hack of frontrunner Emmanuel Macron’s campaign emails from influencing the outcome of the country’s presidential election with a warning yesterday it could be a criminal offence to republish the data.
Macron’s team said a “massive” hack had dumped emails, documents and campaign financing information online just before campaigning ended on Friday and France entered a quiet period which forbids politicians from commenting on the leak.
The data leak emerged as polls predicted Macron, a former investment banker and economy minister, was on course for a comfortable victory over far-right leader Marine Le Pen in today’s election, with the last surveys showing his lead widening to around 62 per cent to 38.
“On the eve of the most important election for our institutions, the commission calls on everyone present on internet sites and social networks, primarily the media, but also all citizens, to show responsibility and not to pass on this content, so as not to distort the sincerity of the ballot,” the French election commission said in a statement yesterday.
However, the commission — which supervises the electoral process — may find it difficult to enforce its rules in an era where people get much of their news online, information flows freely across borders and many users are anonymous.
French media covered the hack in various ways, with left-leading Liberation giving it prominence on its website, but television news channels opting not to mention it.
France took a hard line yesterday over a huge trove of documents hacked from presidential front-runner Emmanuel Macron’s campaign, warning on the eve of the election that anyone spreading them could face criminal charges.
The warning came after the pro-European centrist’s team lambasted a “massive and coordinated” hack that resulted in thousands of emails, accounting details and internal documents being posted late Friday.
The leak was an 11th-hour twist ahead of Sunday’s decisive run-off after a bruising and divisive campaign pitting the 39-year-old former banker who embraces free-trade against his anti-EU, far-right rival Marine Le Pen.
“The dissemination of such data, which have been fraudulently obtained and in all likelihood may have been mingled with false information, is liable to be classified as a criminal offence,” France’s electoral commission said in a statement.
The documents spread on social media just before midnight as the candidates officially wrapped up campaigning, in what Macron’s team termed an attempt at “democratic destabilisation, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the United States”.
Hillary Clinton has alleged Russian hacking of her campaign’s emails was partly to blame for her defeat by Donald Trump in the US presidential election in November.
Macron’s campaign employs tough server protections and network encryption, but experienced hackers can always find a way in. “In this kind of organisation the real potential faultline is the human element,” the head of computer services for En Marche! recently said, requesting anonymity.
Because security procedures can become long and cumbersome, some people can be tempted to get around them by using personal email services which are little or badly protected.
Macron’s team said the files were stolen weeks ago when several officials from his En Marche party had their personal and work emails hacked — in one of “an intense and repeated” series of cyber-attacks targeting the candidate since the launch of the campaign.
“Clearly, the documents arising from the hacking are all lawful and show the normal functioning of a presidential campaign,” aides said in a statement.
But they warned that whoever was behind the leak had mixed fake documents with real ones “in order to sow doubt and disinformation”.