Even as staffers at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo continued to bury their colleagues killed in last week s terrorist attack, the country s cyberdefence chief said hackers had targeted about 19,000 French websites, some of them the suspected work of Islamic groups.
The country is already tense, with demonstrations, heavy police presence around possible targets like synagogues and schools, and a general sense of shock and malaise. Now, targets from military outposts to pizza shops have been rattled anew by cyber-mischief.
An Associated Press report said officials consider the huge number of attacks to be highly unusual:
Calling it an unprecedented surge, Adm. Arnaud Coustilliere, for the French military, said about 19,000 French websites had faced cyberattacks in recent days, some carried out by well-known Islamic hacker groups. The attacks, mostly relatively minor denial-of-service attacks, hit sites as varied as military regiments to pizza shops but none appeared to have caused serious damage, he said.
What s new, what s important, is that this is 19,000 sites — that s never been seen before, Coustilliere said. This is the first time that a country has been faced with such a . Coustilliere called the attacks a response to the massive demonstrations against terrorism that drew 3.7 million people into the streets Sunday across France. He pointed to more or less structured groups that used tactics like posting symbols of jihadist groups on companies Web sites.
According to an NBC report , some experts point out that while the public is rightfully alarmed by attacks like the ones in France or by a large-scale hack, like the one on Sony last month, it s important to realize that these assaults are part of a much larger if less publicized trend.
Sony is reeling from the effects of its recent massive breach, in which hackers were able to penetrate the company s systems at a deep level — and make Hollywood insiders blush by releasing troves of internal data and private emails.
The scope of the breach, and the extent to which Sony was targeted, appears shocking to the public. But cybersecurity experts say this is happening all around you: There s a much wider world of ongoing major hacks, with government-sponsored groups or hacktivist collectives mounting attacks against financial institutions, private companies, infrastructure and the military.
From a critical infrastructure and economic perspective, we ve seen a lot worse than Sony, Jeff Bardin, the chief intelligence officer at cyber-intelligence and training firm , told NBC News. Let s put it in the context of the real issues: attacks on our power grid, our banks, are happening.
Still, the wave of cyberattacks in France comes at a particularly sensitive time, probably increasing the power of the campaign to shock the public.
The attacks occurred in an atmosphere of rising anti-Semitism in France, and have prompted scattered attacks on Muslim sites around France in an apparent backlash. They have also put many French Muslims on the defensive.
Hollande said France s millions of Muslims should be protected and respected, just as they themselves should respect the nation and its strictly secular values.
Anti-Muslim acts, like anti-Semitism, should not just be denounced but severely punished, Hollande said Thursday at the Institute of the Arab World in Paris.
Noting that Muslims are the main victims of Islamic extremist violence, he said, In the face of terrorism, we are all united.
Credit: AP
