French president Nicolas Sarkozy is a victim of a phishing scam. French officials confirmed yesterday that he had money stolen from his bank account after inadvertently giving scammers his username and password through what was later found to be a phishing email.

           “[This] proves the system of Internet checking is not infallible,” French secretary of state for consumer affairs Luc Chatel said. “These cases are sufficiently rare that we haven’t had to really organize ourselves, but [are] sufficiently serious for us to reflect on how to improve the system.”

President Sarkozy filed a complaint with police and an investigation is ongoing. The specifics of the attack haven’t been released and officials say the president’s bank could face sanctions if it’s found their security procedures, or lack thereof, contributed to the hacker’s attack.