Macron Campaign Says It Was Target of ‘Massive’ Hacking Attack -<br />By AURELIEN BREEDEN, SEWELL CHAN and NICOLE PERLROTHMAY 5, 2017<br />PARIS — On the eve of the most consequential French presidential election in decades, the staff of the centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron said late Friday<br />that the campaign had been targeted by a “massive and coordinated” hacking operation, one with the potential to destabilize the nation’s democracy before voters go to the polls on Sunday.<br />In a statement, the Macron campaign said the hackers had mixed fake documents along with authentic ones, “to sow doubt and misinformation.”<br />“Intervening in the final hour of the official campaign, this operation is clearly a matter of democratic destabilization,<br />as was seen in the United States during the last presidential campaign,” the statement said.<br />The Macron campaign said the documents leaked Friday were stolen several weeks ago after the personal<br />and professional emails of staff members at En Marche, his political movement, were hacked.<br />They shared nine gigabytes worth of documents and emails — “a jumble of what appears to be the contents of a hard drive<br />and several emails of co-workers and En Marche political officials.”<br />“It will take to time to sift through it all, but at first glance, they seem to be utterly mundane,” Numerama said after analyzing the data.
