A convincing Free Mobile phishing email reported on 30 September 2026 demanded €9.99 for an alleged unpaid invoice and threatened service suspension. Malwarebytes Labs said the message led to a lookalike payment page seeking card details. The October 2024 Free data breach is confirmed, but available sources do not establish that the later email used information stolen in that breach.
What the reported Free Mobile email asked recipients to do
Malwarebytes Labs reported that an employee who is a Free Mobile customer received the email on 30 September 2026. The message claimed an invoice of €9.99 was unpaid and urged payment to avoid suspension. According to the report, it copied Free branding and email templates, came from a suspicious sender address, and used redirects to reach a lookalike payment page requesting card details. Malwarebytes described it as more convincing than earlier Free Mobile scams it had seen. This is a report of one observed sample, not evidence of how many customers received it or whether every indicator remains active. Malwarebytes Labs’ 1 October 2026 report listed espace-free-mobile.pro as one final destination and said the domain had been registered about a month earlier. Do not visit it; domains and redirect chains can change.
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What is known about the 2024 Free data breach
The breach occurred in October 2024. In its January 2026 announcement, France’s data protection authority, CNIL, said an attacker accessed personal data relating to 24 million subscriber contracts. The exposed fields varied: the government’s Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr guidance lists categories including names, email and postal addresses, date and place of birth, phone numbers, subscriber identifiers and contract details. Bank-account references or an IBAN were involved for some people, including people who were customers of both FREE MOBILE and FREE. Passwords were not believed to have been affected. These details should not be read as meaning every affected person had every listed field exposed.
CNIL said it received more than 2,500 complaints from affected people before its inspection. On 13 January 2026, its restricted committee imposed fines of €27 million on FREE MOBILE and €15 million on FREE, €42 million altogether. CNIL also said the notification email did not include all information required under GDPR Article 34. Its English-language announcement states: “However, the restricted committee considered that the email sent did not contain all the necessary information referred to in paragraph 2 of Article 34 of the GDPR, ruling that these omissions did not allow the individuals concerned to directly understand the consequences of the breach, nor the measures they could take to protect themselves from them.” CNIL’s announcement was published on 14 January 2026.
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Is the new phishing email linked to the breach?
The timing makes a tailored-looking scam more plausible, but the reviewed sources do not establish that the September 2026 email used data stolen in the 2024 incident. The breach is confirmed by CNIL; the later phishing sample is described by Malwarebytes; a connection between the sample and the breach has not been demonstrated. Treat them as related in context, not as a proven cause-and-effect story.
How to check a Free invoice or account warning safely
Use several signals together. Branding or polished wording is not proof of authenticity, and a single visual clue cannot reliably settle the question.
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- Pause at urgency or pressure. A demand to pay immediately to avoid suspension is a reason to verify independently, not to follow the message’s link.
- Check the sender and destination. A sender address unrelated to Free, redirects, or a lookalike domain are warning signs. Do not open a suspicious destination to investigate it.
- Verify through a route you choose. Open Free’s official site or app yourself, or call support using a number obtained independently from Free’s official source. Free’s guidance directs customers with doubts to 3244; confirm current contact details on its site. Free’s phishing guidance also explains that access to the Free Mobile subscriber area may require a six-digit code sent by SMS or email.
- Keep confidential information out of message links. Do not enter card details, passwords or security codes through a link in an unsolicited message. Stolen personal details can be used to build trust and prompt disclosure or banking actions, Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr warns.
What to do with a suspicious message—or after responding
If you have not clicked or replied
Do not click links, open suspicious attachments or reply. CNIL’s general breach guidance recommends deleting suspicious messages. Verify any real invoice through Free’s independently opened site, app or official support channel instead. CNIL’s guidance on data leaks and theft covers these precautions.
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Contact Free and your bank promptly using independently verified official channels. The sources cited here do not provide a campaign-specific recovery procedure or establish what recovery outcomes to expect, so follow the provider’s and bank’s instructions for your situation.
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