French government weathered 48-hour cyberattack: minister

A cyberattack of "unprecedented intensity" against the French government claimed by pro-Russian hackers this week failed to stop state operations running, a minister said Friday.

Published: 16 March 2024 07:15 CET

A cyberattack against the French government failed to stop state operations running, a minister said on Friday. Photo: Arget on Unsplash

The attack came just months before Paris hosts the Olympics Games in July.

The 48-hour effort that started Sunday “hit 800 administrative centres at once” but “at no moment were communications down… every civil servant was well-informed in real time and it did not destabilise the functioning of the state,” Civil Service Minister Stanislas Guerini told reporters in Rennes, northwest France.

It had been “an attack of unprecedented scale in intensity, in time, and the number of places targeted,” he added during a visit to a government network centre.

Guerini said he was “very cautious” about identifying the perpetrators of the attack, which was claimed by a pro-Russian group calling itself Anonymous Sudan.

“Several names have been mentioned: what stands out to me is Anonymous rather than Sudan,” Guerini said, saying those behind it were “almost certainly in allegiance to pro-Russian networks”.

The hackers had claimed they launched a “massive cyberattack” against France’s economy, culture and environment ministries, as well as the prime minister’s office and the DGAC civil aviation authority.

“Ties between these networks of cybercriminals and Russian networks are known and documented, acknowledged,” Guerini said, adding that “all of this is part of the hybrid war our nations are already experiencing.”

President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday highlighted “hybrid” attacks originating from Russia — including against French hospitals — in a prime-time TV interview explaining his support for Ukraine against Moscow’s
invasion.

Europe should be “ready to respond” to any Russian “escalation” of the conflict, Macron said, after weeks of criticism for refusing to rule out sending troops into Ukraine.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.