“A free stress test before the Olympics”: story of a cyberattack which (a little) parasitized the administration

2024-03-12 23:03:09

Digital raids as dazzling as they are harmless in the long term. Several ministries or administrations have been, since Sunday evening, the target of computer attacks by denial of service (DDoS) which have marginally interfered with the activity of their agents. The Prime Minister’s services quickly spoke on Monday of a cyberattack of “unprecedented intensity” but their impact at this stage “has been reduced” and access to state sites “restored”. Some disruptions continued this Tuesday before the problem was completely resolved Tuesday evening. “The attack is now completely under control. Everything is 100% back to normal,” assured Le Parisien at the start of the evening, Stanislas Guerini, Minister of Transformation and Public Service.

All eyes quickly turned to the East. The attack was in fact claimed – in English, Arabic and Russian – on Monday on encrypted messaging Telegram and social networks by an alliance of hacktivists, computer hackers with a supposed political cause. The first to open hostilities, the Anonymous Sudan group was quickly joined by the NoName and UserSec groups.