Cyberattack at Lingor: Identity Documents, IBANs, and Addresses of Gold Buyers Exposed

Well-guarded gold bars, much less secure files. Lingor, one of the leading French dealers in physical gold (bars, coins, postal buyback), confirmed on Thursday evening that it had fallen victim to a cyber intrusion accompanied by a ransom demand. The company refused to pay. However, the damage is done, and it closely resembles the feared scenario since the hacking of the DGFiP: a file of individuals holding an easily resalable asset, complete with their addresses, identities, and banking details. For a burglar or a fake police officer, it’s a shopping list. Key points of this article: * Lingor, a French gold dealer, suffered a cyberattack resulting in the theft of sensitive customer data. * The compromised information includes personal and financial details, turning customers into potential targets for scams. The intrusion was detected on August 26, when the attackers directly contacted the company to demand a ransom. The next day at 6 PM, Lingor began notifying its customers one by one via email. The text of this message, reproduced by FrenchBreaches on August 27, distinguishes between two scopes. For buyers from the online stores (lingor.fr and monlingot.fr), the affected data includes << first name, last name, delivery address, billing address, email address, phone number, order number, nature of purchased items, quantity of items, transaction amount, transaction date >>. In other words, who bought what, for how much, and where it was delivered. The second scope is more concerning. Customers who used the postal buyback kit, a service where one sends their gold to be bought back, had to provide a copy of their ID, proof of residence, and a bank account statement with IBAN to receive payment. All of this has potentially leaked. The only consolation, albeit a slim one, is that credit card numbers are processed by an external provider and are not affected. The number of customers impacted has not been disclosed. Lingor claims to have secured the compromised access, entrusted the investigation to a specialized provider, notified the CNIL, and filed a complaint. The site lingor.fr, however, does not mention any incident at this time, except for a phone number << unavailable due to a technical incident >>. Gold buyers, cryptocurrency holders: same profile, same predators. Anyone following the news of crypto kidnappings in France will recognize the pattern. Since 2024, kidnappings and home-jackings targeting cryptocurrency holders almost always rely on a prior data leak, whether it comes from Ledger, Coinmama, or the tax administration itself. Physical gold checks exactly the same boxes, with an additional drawback. A wallet can be emptied remotely or protected by a multisig. A one-kilogram gold bar, however, is in a cupboard, at the delivery address that the hackers now have in front of them. Lingor is well aware of this. Its message to customers lists the risks of << targeted phishing, identity theft, or banking and administrative fraud >>, and recommends ignoring any home visits from individuals claiming to verify assets. No one at Lingor needs the scenario drawn out for them. With an ID, proof of residence, and an IBAN, a fraudster can set up a consumer credit file in one afternoon. With the order history, they know which door to knock on. And what amount to expect. This episode comes at the end of a particularly busy summer for data leaks in France, with organizations affected in large batches on certain days. Precious metal dealers, who are legally required (anti-money laundering) to collect identity documents for each transaction above certain thresholds, are mechanically becoming vaults of personal data. A vault can also be robbed. Lingor customers: the reflexes to adopt right now. If you have ordered from lingor.fr or monlingot.fr, or especially used the postal buyback kit, assume that your data is circulating. Monitor your bank statements and report any unknown withdrawals. Be wary of calls or emails purporting to be from Lingor, your bank, or the police, even if they mention your real orders: that’s precisely what makes phishing credible. You can also request an administrative block on your ID, and if your gold is stored at home, reconsider that option.

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