Macron condemns 'massive' hacking attack as documents leaked

International Desk: The campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron says it has been the target of a "massive hacking attack" after a trove of documents was released online.

The campaign said that genuine files were mixed up with fake ones in order to confuse people.

It said that it was clear the hackers wanted to undermine Mr Macron ahead of Sunday's second round vote.

The centrist will face off against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.

The documents were leaked on a file sharing website late on Friday, as the official presidential campaigning period drew to a close.

The Macron camp condemned the leak minutes before the midnight deadline (22:00 GMT).

Candidates and the media now face restrictions until the polls close on Sunday evening, meaning Mr Macron cannot issue any more statements.

Opinion polls had indicated the former economy minister carried a lead of 20 percentage points or more over Ms Le Pen.

The details are unclear so far, but Mr Macron's En Marche movement said internal campaign documents, including emails and financial data, had been taken in an "act of massive, co-ordinated hacking".

"The leaked files were obtained several weeks ago by hacking personal and professional email accounts of several officials of the movement," it said in a statement.


Source: Agencies



Risingbd/May 6, 2017/Mukul