Published on : 28/04/2022 – 21:18Modified : 28/04/2022 – 21:16
Paris (AFP) – “Professional” sabotage as a warning: following acts of malicious intent on an unprecedented scale disrupted internet access in several major French cities on Wednesday, securing network infrastructures is once once more becoming a critical issue, despite their “resilience “.
“Aggravation” of vandalism
The rare photos released of the interregional “long distance” optical fiber cables voluntarily severed in several places, in particular on the Paris-Lyon and Paris-Strasbourg link, testify to the sophistication of the attack, according to specialists.
“Bundles of clues show that the authors knew precisely the location of the pulling chambers (the place where the cables pass, editor’s note) and the cables to be cut”, observes a connoisseur of the French internet network.
“On the Paris-Lyon axis, it was done in the middle of a rapeseed field. They also cut the excess cable lengths, used during maintenance, so that it took a lot of time to repair. It’s ultra-precision work,” he adds.
Michel Combot, director general of the French Telecoms Federation, confirms to AFP that “we have reached a milestone” in “the worsening of acts of vandalism” since 2020.
Especially since the operators were more used, according to him, to being struck by “fairly isolated, often unprofessional acts” and confined to the desire to “make a symbol”, like 5G antennas. burnt down during the health crisis.
Beyond the risks already identified in terms of cybersecurity, it is therefore the issue of the physical preservation of networks that has been brought to light by these attacks.
“Our telecom infrastructures are also legally qualified as infrastructures of vital importance for the country”, recalled on Europe 1 Thomas Reynaud, general manager of Iliad, parent company of the operator Free, underlining the important place taken by digital “in our daily lives, in our economies, in our public services”.
“Resilience” despite malevolence
Despite the scale of the attack, the case also demonstrated the “very rapid” repair capacity of French operators and “the strength of the Internet model”, estimates Pierre Bonis, director general of Afnic, association which manages “.fr” domain names.
“A network is like a nervous system: as soon as a branch is cut, it protects itself and we switch traffic to secondary roads, other fiber optic paths. This is what allowed us to greatly limit the impact for our subscribers and to restore the service very quickly”, says Thomas Reynaud.
InfraNum, the federation which brings together all of the French digital infrastructure manufacturers, wants to plead with the next government, however, the need to launch “a major plan” to strengthen “the resilience” of telecom networks.
“We are not immune to it starting once more”, warns its president, Philippe Le Grand, who recommends ensuring that 100% of the networks are doubled (“redundant”) because it “is not yet the case everywhere”.
“Tougher” penalties for sabotage
In March 2020, telecom cables were intentionally cut in Ile-de-France, Vitry and Ivry (Val-de-Marne), temporarily depriving tens of thousands of Orange subscribers of internet access, while that data centers saw their activity disrupted.
A complaint had been filed and an investigation opened, but one of the parties to the case told AFP on Wednesday that he had “no news from the authorities” on this subject.
“There were still people arrested” on other cases, recalls Michel Combot, of the French Federation of Telecoms.
While it judges the arsenal of criminal sanctions in force to be “little dissuasive”, the association which brings together all the operators pleads for a toughening of the penalties linked to the degradation of network infrastructures.
“Instead of a maximum of two years in prison, you have to go to a maximum of five years. And instead of a maximum fine of 30,000 euros, you have to go to a maximum fine of 75,000 euros”, asks Mr. Combot.
“We have already defended this proposal last year in Parliament but without success”, he adds, also calling for a strengthening of “cooperation” with the police and justice authorities “at the local level”.
© 2022 AFP
