FRANCE’S FINANCE ministry has been targeted by suspected cyber-spies seeking information on its G20 presidency, the government confirmed yesterday.

Budget minister François Baroin said 150 computers in the ministry were accessed last December in an attack that security staff detected in January. He said the operation appeared to have homed in on the ministry’s work on the G20, of which France is president, but that personal records were not compromised.

Officials were shocked by the scale of the breach, he said.

Mr Baroin said there were some leads as to the identity of the hackers, but he did not provide further details.

The attack was reportedly carried out through an e-mail virus. According to Paris Match, which reported the incident yesterday, the security breach was discovered when “bizarre movements” in online traffic were detected by technical staff.

Patrick Pailloux, the director general of the national agency for information systems security, said the attack was “one of the most significant, if not the most significant, ever to target the French public service”.

Those behind it were “determined and organised professionals” who had managed to access 150 computers, including those belonging to senior officials, over a number of weeks. This would have allowed them to access “sensitive information”.

An official complaint has been filed with French courts, and an investigation is being carried out by the intelligence services.

France began its G20 presidency in November with plans to tackle high commodity prices, reform the global monetary system and complete the G20 framework for tackling global economic imbalances.

It hosted a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in the finance ministry last month, with members agreeing a list of targets for reducing imbalances in the world economy in order to avert future financial crises.