Cyber attacks of “unprecedented intensity” targeted several French government institutions in the months before the Paris Olympics but have been contained, the prime minister’s office said on Monday.
The latest cyber attack to hit France follows a warning from Attal’s defense adviser just last week that the Olympics in July and European Parliament elections in June could be “important targets”.
Prime Minister Gabriel Atal’s office said several government agencies were targeted, but did not provide details.
“Many ministerial departments were targeted” since Sunday “by known technical means but of unprecedented intensity,” Atal’s office said.
A security source told AFP the attacks were “not currently attributed to Russia”, an obvious suspect for many given Paris’ support for Kiev since the invasion of Ukraine.
The prime minister’s staff added that “a crisis core has been activated to develop countermeasures,” meaning that “the impact of these attacks has been reduced for most services and access to government websites has been restored.”
China closes key political meeting with pledges to boost struggling economy
Special agencies, including the information security agency ANSSI “apply filtering measures until the attacks are over.”
Several hacker groups have claimed responsibility for attacks on Telegram, a messaging app, including one calling itself Anonymous Sudan, which it said launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on French government network infrastructure.
“We have conducted a massive cyberattack… the damage will be extensive,” said the group, which posted an avatar of a Guy Fawkes hooded mask in front of a desert scene with pyramids.
Guy Fawkes is famous for his 1605 plot to blow up the British Parliament, and his image has become a widespread symbol of revolutionary protest.
“Many different areas of digital government have been affected, including very important websites, with their respective sub-domains,” it said.
Anonymous Sudan is a well-known group that has carried out attacks in the past year against websites in countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Israel.
Proliferating “news” sites are broadcasting fake stories generated by AI
Supposedly based in Sudan, it says it targets what it sees as anti-Muslim activity with some signs of being sympathetic to Russia.
Specialist website Numerama said Anonymous Sudan’s exact motivations were “unclear”, adding however that it had a history of “targeting enemies designated by Moscow”.
A DDoS attack involves using a computer or network of computers to make a huge number of requests to a target system, overwhelming its ability to respond to legitimate users.
According to American cybersecurity firm Cloudflare, Anonymous Sudan is one of several groups that use DDoS attacks, and organizations can protect themselves against its methods.
The latest cyber attack also follows Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s call last month to boost protection against “sabotage and cyber attack” by Russia, in an internal memo seen by AFP that said his ministry was at the top of its target list. Moscow.
Source: AFP