“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is also a cyber aggression.” According to the statements of the Secretary of State for Digital, Cédric O this Saturday morning on France Info, France has raised its level of alert and preparation once morest cyberattacks.
“Many Russian cyberattacks have hit Ukraine and its infrastructure. France and all the countries of the European Union have increased their level of alert. We remain extremely vigilant,” he said.
Since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, cyberattacks have multiplied in the country, bombarded by Russia, on land and digitally. “In the rest of the continent, it is a fear. But what we see is quite limited, ”continues the Secretary of State.
Only tangible case, the attack directed once morest the American satellite operator Viasat, this Friday. Thousands of internet users are deprived of internet in France and in Europe. According to Orange, “nearly 9,000 French subscribers” are concerned. “There was probably a cyberattack,” confirms Cédric O.
9,000 French people deprived of the Internet
Other disturbances have also been observed in Germany and Eastern Europe, where 5,800 wind turbines from the American KA-SAT satellite network have since been inaccessible. Enercon, the manufacturer of these machines specifies that the problems began on February 24, the first day of the invasion of Ukraine.
A report by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), quoted on Friday by the daily Handelsblatt, considers it “conceivable” that a cyberattack is the cause of this outage.
For now, the worst-case scenario seems to have been avoided, with the observed attacks appearing contained in their effects and geographic scale. Russia is not immune either: Russian institutional sites have been made inaccessible from abroad, to protect them from denial of service attacks (DOS) which regularly render them inoperative.
Cédric O is due to receive his European counterparts in Nevers for a Council on telecommunications and cybersecurity, as well as the fight once morest disinformation. “The support that the digital sector can provide to the Ukrainian people will also be discussed,” he said.
