Be careful if you have received an email from France Identity in recent days, because it is a scam. Cybercriminals have hijacked the real email address of the government service for their phishing campaign.

Be careful if you have received an email from France Identity in recent days, because it is a scam. Cybercriminals have hijacked the real email address of the government service for their phishing campaign.

Developed by the Government as part of the action plan for the digital transformation of the State, France Identity is an application which allows you to dematerialize your identity card and driving license to store them in your smartphone, and thus Easily authenticate to online services via FranceConnect. Since April, it has also made it possible to make proxies 100% electronically, without having to travel (see our practical guide). In short, an essential service which integrates particularly sensitive data. But be careful, because the Government is sounding the alert regarding a phishing campaign which is underway and is trying to trap users of the application.

“For several days, users have been receiving emails from [email protected] asking them to send a copy of their double-sided identity card as well as proof of address,” warns France Identity on X (formerly Twitter), calling on users to be vigilant. Small peculiarity of this scam which makes it particularly formidable: the message is sent from the real May address of the government service.

France Identity scam: a fake email with a real address

If the very wording of the phishing email is sufficient to suspect a scam, what raises questions is the use of the address [email protected] as the sender. Because it is nothing more and nothing less than the legitimate domain name of France Identity. Obviously, the service has had its identity stolen. He would have poorly protected his server access or the cybercriminals would have used the address dressing technique. Moreover, if you reply to this email, you will be redirected to a false address: direction[@]france-identite-fr[.]info.

If the email address does not detect the deception, other signs fortunately alert us. The fraudulent email indeed contains spelling errors, but also approximate punctuation. Besides, there is a contradiction in the content of the message. The email is sent by a “noreply” address, which therefore does not require a response, as its name suggests. However, the text invites the victim to do exactly the opposite. This is fishy…

France Identity scam: formidable identity theft

The data requested by scammers is particularly sensitive. With an identity card, they can open a bank account in the victims’ name or take out loans from online banks with quick registrations (like Boursorama and Hello Bank for example). Generally, a few months later, the scammed people receive a message from the establishment telling them that they are now on the red list.

If you are ever the target of an online or SMS scam, forward the message to Signal Spam immediately, Pharosor directly to 33,700the platform specializing in reporting scams. You can also report these fraudulent messages to the site internet-signalement.gouv.fr. Then block the sender’s number or email address to no longer be bothered and delete the message in question.