French telecommunications giant Orange, one of the world’s largest telecom operators, has confirmed a significant cyberattack on its network infrastructure. The company detected the breach on Friday, July 25, prompting immediate isolation measures that have disrupted services for business and consumer customers primarily in France.
## Immediate Response and Impact
Orange Cyberdefense, the company’s cybersecurity division, quickly identified and isolated the compromised system from the broader network. However, these protective measures resulted in operational disruptions affecting various services and management platforms. The company expects to gradually restore normal operations by Wednesday morning, July 30.
“The Orange Group detected a cyberattack on one of its information systems,” the company stated. “Teams mobilized fully to isolate potentially affected services and limit the impact, though these operations disrupted certain services for business customers and some consumer services, mainly in France.”
## Investigation Status
Orange has notified relevant authorities and filed an official complaint regarding the incident. Importantly, the company’s investigation team has found no evidence of data theft at this stage.
“There is no evidence to suggest that any customer or Orange data has been extracted,” the company confirmed, while emphasizing continued vigilance during the ongoing investigation.
## Potential Connection to Global Campaign
While Orange has not attributed the attack to any specific threat group, the incident resembles a series of widespread telecommunications breaches linked to China’s Salt Typhoon cyber-espionage group. The FBI and CISA confirmed in October that this state-sponsored group had compromised multiple major U.S. telecom providers, including AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen, as well as telecommunications companies across dozens of countries.
Recent victims of the Salt Typhoon campaign include Comcast, Digital Realty, and satellite communications company Viasat, indicating an ongoing global telecommunications targeting operation.
## Previous Security Incidents
This marks the second significant cyberattack on Orange this year. In February, the company’s Romanian branch suffered a breach of a non-critical application, with a threat actor claiming to have stolen thousands of internal documents, employee data, and 380,000 email addresses.
## Company Profile
Orange serves 294 million customers across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, including 256 million mobile and 22 million fixed broadband subscribers. Operating under the Orange Business brand for multinational corporate clients, the company employs 125,800 people worldwide and reported €40.3 billion in revenue for 2024.
The incident highlights the ongoing vulnerability of critical telecommunications infrastructure to sophisticated cyber threats and the potential for widespread service disruptions during security response operations.