French teen detained for selling 11.7M records stolen from ANTS gov portal

French prosecutors have detained a 15-year-old accused of breaching France Titres (ANTS), the agency that issues administrative documents, and offering the stolen data for sale on a criminal forum under the handle ‘breach3d’. ANTS detected the intrusion on April 13 and notified authorities three days later. Investigators link the minor to a listing advertising between 12 and 18 million records pulled from the ants.gouv.fr portal.

ANTS later confirmed 11.7 million accounts were affected, with exposed fields including full names, email addresses, dates of birth, postal addresses, and phone numbers. The agency states the stolen data cannot be used to gain unauthorized access to accounts. The suspect faces charges for unauthorized access, persistence, exfiltration from a state-run personal data system, and possession of offensive tooling — offenses carrying up to seven years and a EUR 300,000 fine. A judge is now reviewing the case and prosecutors have requested judicial supervision pending formal charges.