France's TMG takes legal action against hacker of IP addresses

As reported yesterday, media reports suggest that the French government, which uses TMG to monitor BitTorrent and similar file-sharing sites/services, has suspended its contract with the firm, amidst allegations that TMG's systems were not that well secured.

The TorrentFreak newswire quoted Olivier Laureli, a security researcher, as saying that a TMG virtual machine leaked a lot of data, including scripts, peer-to-peer clients designed to generate fake peers, plus local physical addresses in the datacentre.

TorrentFreak also asserted that the IP addresses of French citizens, who were being monitored by TMG for alleged violations of anti-piracy legislation, may also have been leaked.

This assertion now looks to have been correct, as French newswires say that TMG has filed papers with courts against the unknown hacker, whose identity is being pursued by investigators.

Ouest France quotes Alain Guislain, TMG's CEO, as saying that officials with CNIL, the French data protection office, have visited his offices to investigate the possible data breach.

Le Monde, meanwhile, has confirmed that the French government agency that deals with piracy issues has stopped taking live feeds from TMG.

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