While the war in Ukraine is causing an explosion of cyberattacks of all kinds, the European heads of cybermilitary operations met on Friday March 31 in Brussels as part of a brand new exchange format called “Cyberco”. This discussion circle, launched in 2022, just a few weeks before the start of the conflict, aims to develop more fluid cooperation between the European cyber defense commands (comcyber), an area where intelligence sharing is far from being An evidence.
“The goal is to create strategic solidarity, but by being pragmatic and without creating a gas plant”, explains General Aymeric Bonnemaison, the head of the French cyber defense command, who chaired this biannual meeting, born of a hexagonal initiative. This is’“avoid duplication” with the circles of exchanges of NATO, dominated by the United States, but, in spite of everything, not to deprive oneself of the “natural proximity” between Europeans.
According to a report published on Wednesday, March 29, by Thales’s cyber threat analysis department, the share of cyberattacks targeting European Union (EU) countries has increased from 9.8% to 46.5% these last six months. An increase directly linked to the Ukrainian conflict, while 61% of the attacks recorded in the world for a year are of Russian origin, says the French industrial group. It is the countries that support kyiv the most that are targeted as a priority, says Thales.
The targeted National Assembly
Since February 24, 2022 and the entry of Moscow troops on Ukrainian soil, the Baltic countries have thus suffered 157 attacks, ahead of Poland (114 incidents), the countries of the North (95 incidents in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland) or Germany (58 incidents). Less exposed, France would have recorded 14 attacks in one year. Latest victim of this wave of incidents: the website of the National Assembly, made inaccessible for several hours on March 27, after an offensive by pro-Russian hackers, according to some specialists.
“Each time we have increased our aid to Ukraine, we have come under attack. And these have not only increased in quantity, but also in quality”supports General Rafael Garcia Hernandez, boss of the Spanish comcyber. “These waves of attacks still remain below the threshold of war, but they are significant enough to have an impact on public opinion”abounds Vice-Admiral Giovanbattista Raimondi, deputy of the Italian comcyber, confronted with the same phenomenon of indexing of incidents according to support for kyiv.
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