19 Million French Citizens' Data Stolen: APIs Become the New "Epicenter" of Data Breaches

In April 2026, France's National Agency for Secure Documents (ANTS), which operates under the Ministry of the Interior, confirmed it had suffered a cyberattack. The attackers claimed to have stolen 19 million citizen records, including full names, dates of birth, email addresses, login IDs, and in some cases, physical addresses and phone numbers.

The agency warned that this data is highly likely to be used for precise phishing attacks. This is not an isolated incident – APIs are rapidly becoming the new "epicenter" of data breaches.

Event Analysis: How Did the Attackers Succeed?

The attackers did not forcefully breach the core database. Instead, they exploited vulnerabilities in externally facing API interfaces, such as unauthorized access and horizontal privilege escalation. With lax permission checks on a legitimate API call, an attacker could simply iterate through ID parameters to bulk-fetch massive amounts of data. This was not a traditional "database dump," but rather a "withdrawal" of data directly through the API.

Three Blind Spots of Traditional Security Approaches:

Blind Spot 1: API Assets are a "Black Box." Enterprises are unaware of how many APIs are running and which ones expose sensitive data. "Shadow APIs" become the perfect entry point.

Blind Spot 2: Coarse-Grained Access Control. Security only provides application-level access, lacking fine-grained "user-interface-data" authorization. Once a legitimate account is compromised, attackers can move freely.

Blind Spot 3: Invisible Data Flow. There is no real-time monitoring of sensitive data returned by APIs. When large amounts of data are being anomalously retrieved, there is no way to detect, block, or trace the activity.

Shifting from "Perimeter Defense" to "Data Flow Security"

Based on its "Cloud-Pipe-Terminal" philosophy, SecSmart Information provides an API data security solution powered by a dual-engine "Audit + Control" framework.

First Engine: See the Risk – Secsmart Application System Security Audit Product

This product is deployed out-of-band (via port mirroring) without affecting business operations, providing comprehensive API traffic analysis:

Asset Mapping: Automatically discovers APIs across the network, identifying zombie and shadow interfaces.

Sensitive Data Identification: Automatically identifies sensitive data like national IDs and phone numbers, applying labels.

Anomaly Detection: Based on behavioral baselines, intelligently identifies actions like privilege escalation, credential stuffing, and data scraping, triggering real-time alerts.​​​​​​​

Session Replay: Records the complete call process, supporting forensic investigation and evidence collection.

Second Engine: Control the Risk – Secsmart Application Security Access Control System

This product acts as a unified security gateway, enabling fine-grained, dynamic control:

Precise Authorization: Establishes a three-dimensional "user-interface-data" permission matrix, dynamically determining access rights to ensure controlled and well-managed authorization.​​​​​​​

Dynamic Data Masking: Performs real-time masking of sensitive data returned by APIs based on user permissions, ensuring data is usable, accurate, but cannot be exfiltrated.​​​​​​​

Full-Link Blocking: Built-in risk rules enable real-time blocking of违规 (violating/non-compliant) calls.​​​​​​​

Digital Watermarking: Injects visible/invisible watermarks containing the accessor's identity, allowing rapid identification of responsible parties in case of a leak.

Five Core Advantages

Full Lifecycle Coverage: From asset discovery to audit trail, providing a complete closed loop.​​​​​​​

Data-Centric vs. Vulnerability-Centric Approach: Focuses on sensitive data,感知 (detecting/perceiving) any access to it.​​​​​​​

Lightweight Deployment, No Business Disruption: Uses out-of-band mirroring and reverse proxy, requiring no code changes.​​​​​​​

Intelligent Analysis, Precision and Efficiency: A UEBA engine automatically learns baselines to accurately identify anomalies.​​​​​​​

Full Compliance: Meets the core requirements of China's Data Security Law and Personal Information Protection Law.

The French incident proves once again: wherever data flows, security defenses must extend to that point. "Visible violations" vs. "Invisible loss of control" – Secsmart combats AI-driven threats with AI, using AI to power data flow security.

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