Was the French Government Hacked by Russia?

AP

France, which is putting a lot of effort into online and offline security ahead of the Paris Olympics, has been exposed to a cyber attack.

The French government departments’ online services have been frozen since last Sunday evening. French citizens suffer inconveniences as some government-related websites are not functioning due to an anonymous cyber attack.

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According to a report by the local media France24 on the 12th (local time), the type of cybercrime that targeted the French government this time is “DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service).” The Korean Cybercrime Reporting System defines DDoS, also referred to as a denial of service attack, as an attack where many signals and data are sent to an information network or illegal commands are processed, causing a failure (unusable performance degradation) in the information network.

On the same day, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced that it had launched an investigation to find out who was behind the cybercrime targeting the French government. This investigation is conducted with the special intelligence agency under the Ministry of the Interior and the military cybercrime investigation team inside the Paris prosecutor’s office. The prosecutor’s office warned that the hackers responsible for this cybercrime would face severe punishment, stating the penalty level for this cybercrime as “A maximum imprisonment of 10 years and a fine of 300,000 euros ($337,000)”.

The Prime Minister’s Office of Gabriel Attal, the primary target of the cyber attack, explained, “A temporary crisis response team is working hard to defend against the DDoS attack and restore services.” It added, “Most services were normalized on Tuesday, the third day since the attack, but the crisis response team will continue to be on the lookout for any additional attacks.”

Meanwhile, “Anonymous Sudan,” a group of sympathizers supporting Russia, claimed through the messaging app Telegram that they had carried out this cyber attack, but the exact facts remain unknown. Anonymous Sudan specified in the message that they had attacked the French Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Ecological Transition, Civil Aviation Authority, Prime Minister’s Office, National Geographic Agency, etc. Previously, the group carried out DDoS attacks on the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and Swedish SAS airlines in 2023.