Emmanuel Macron’s French presidential campaign hacked

The campaign of the French presidential frontrunner, Emmanuel Macron has said it has been the target of a “massive and coordinated” hacking attack after tens of thousands of internal emails and other documents were leaked online.

In less than 48 hours before polling day, around nine gigabytes of data files were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to the document-sharing site Paste Bin that allows anonymous posting.

Macron’s political movement, En Marche!, confirmed the hack, saying it had been the “victim of a coordinated hack”.

The statement added that the data consisted of “diverse documents such as emails, accounting documents and contracts” hacked several weeks ago from the personal and professional accounts of some of the movement’s staffers.

“Coming in the final hours of the campaign, this operation clearly amounts to democratic weakening, as was seen in the United States,” it said, adding that En Marche! has “consistently been targeted by such initiatives” throughout the campaign.

A statement said “many false documents” had been added to genuine stolen documents on social media “in order to sow doubt and disinformation” as part of an operation “clearly intended to harm the movement”.

The authentic documents were all legal, and “reflected the normal functioning of an electoral campaign”, the statement said. Their publication “does not alarm us as to the prospect of any questions being raised about their legality”.

The Wiki Leaks website posted a Twitter link to the cache of documents, saying it “contains many tens of thousands of emails, photos, attachments up to April 24, 2017”. Also indicating it was not responsible for the leak itself.

A French interior ministry refused to give a comment to the media, reiterating French rules since any remarks could be held liable to influence an election outcome.

At least five new opinion polls published on Friday forecast that Macron would win the election with a share of 62-63%, comfortably defeating his rival, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen.  

Macron’s team previously blamed Russian interests for repeated attempts to hack its systems during the campaign, saying on 26 April it had been the target of failed attempts to steal email credentials since January. The Kremlin has denied any involvement.

During a visit by Le Pen to Moscow in March, Vladimir Putin said Russia had no intention of meddling in the French presidential elections, but analysts said the meeting implicitly signaled support for the Front National.

Cyber security firm Trend Micro, said last month a hacking group, believed to be part of a Russian intelligence unit, was targeting Macron and his campaign team, adding that it appeared to be the same Fancy Bear group behind the hacking of Democratic campaign officials before last year’s US presidential election.