France faces unprecedented cyberattacks on government services

France faced a wave of cyberattacks described as ‘unprecedented intensity,’ targeting several state bodies, according to a statement from Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s office on 11 March. The attacks, utilising familiar technical means, impacted numerous ministerial services.

While details about the specific targets were not provided, the government asserted that it successfully contained the impact. The attacks were not immediately attributed to Russia, a common suspect due to France’s support for Kyiv following the invasion of Ukraine. A crisis cell was activated to deploy countermeasures, reducing the impact on most services, and access to state websites has been restored. Specialist agencies, including the information security agency ANSSI, are implementing filtering measures until the attacks cease.

Anonymous Sudan claimed responsibility for the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on French government network infrastructure. The group, which has targeted websites in various countries in the past year, stated in a Telegram post that they conducted a massive cyberattack with widespread damage across different digital government sectors. Anonymous Sudan, purportedly based in Sudan, has shown signs of sympathy towards Russia and targets what it considers anti-Muslim activity.

Why does it matter?

DDoS attacks involve overwhelming a target system’s ability to respond to legitimate users by generating massive requests. The latest cyberattack in France follows warnings about potential significant targets, such as the Paris Olympics and European Parliament elections, and calls to enhance protection against sabotage and cyberattacks, particularly from Russia.