FRANKFURT/PARIS, May 5 (Reuters) - French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign said on Friday it had been the target of a "massive" computer hack that dumped its campaign mails online 1-1/2 days before voters go to the polls to choose between the centrist and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen. A 9GB trove of data was posted to Pastebin, an anonymous link-sharing website, by a user titling themselves “EMLEAKS.” The files mostly appear to be archives of emails from the Macron campaign, including the candidate and advisers. APT28 last month registered decoy internet addresses to mimic the name of En Marche, which it likely used send tainted emails to hack into the campaign’s computers, Kremez said. (Onwards!) confirmed that it had been hacked. Last night as the #Macronleaks hashtag buzzed around social media, Florian Philippot, deputy leader of the National Front, tweeted “Will Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately killed?”

En Marche! In a statement, the Macron campaign said their movement has been the victim of a massive hacking incident which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information. An interior ministry official declined a Reuters request for comment, citing French rules which forbid any commentary liable to influence an election, and which took effect at midnight French time on Friday (22:00 GMT). The ban is due to stay in place until the last polling stations close on Sunday at 8 pm (1800 GMT).Opinion polls show independent centrist Macron is set to beat National Front candidate Le Pen in Sunday's second round of voting in what is seen to be France's most important election in decades. Former economy minister Macron’s team has complained in the past about attempts to hack its emails during a fraught campaign, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks. Log in to update your newsletter preferences Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive morning headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts by email Update newsletter preferences

Officials said it had been the target of failed attempts to steal email credentials dating back to January, identifying a hacking group operating in Ukraine. The Paris’ prosecutor’s office said no one was named in the complaint, which has triggered an inquiry into the suspected spread of false stories aimed at influencing the election. said the documents only showed the normal functioning of a presidential campaign, but that authentic documents had been mixed on social media with fake ones to sow “doubt and misinformation.”

Ben Nimmo, a UK-based security researcher with the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council think tank, said initial analysis indicated that a group of US far-right online activists were behind early efforts to spread the documents via social media.
France's electoral commission orders French media not to publish contents of Emmanuel Macron's leaked campaign emails to avoid influencing the presidential election, warning journalists could face criminal charges for publishing the material.