Pro-Russian hackers attack French city websites in retaliation for Ukraine support

Websites of several French cities were taken down after being attacked by pro-Russian hackers on 31 December.

Source: European Pravda, citing AFP

Details: Several French city websites and at least one departmental website were unavailable on Tuesday.

In particular, the websites of Marseille and Tarbes, as well as the website of the Haute-Garonne department, were down.  

The attacks were carried out by a hacker group calling itself NoName, which claimed the attacks were in retaliation for France’s support of Ukraine.  

In posts on their X (Twitter) account, the hackers also claimed responsibility for targeting the websites of cities such as Nantes, Bordeaux, Poitiers, Pau, Nîmes, Nice, Angers, Le Havre and Montpellier, as well as the departments of Landes, French Polynesia and New Caledonia. However, all of these sites remained operational on Tuesday.  

Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi confirmed that the city's website had been attacked.  

Marseille’s city hall informed AFP that the servers hosting the city’s websites had been attacked, prompting them to implement protective measures that resulted in the site’s unavailability.  

The cities of Pau and Angers, along with the Landes department, reported no incidents.  

Benoit Grunemwald, a cybersecurity expert at ESET, suggested that the goal of the attacks seemed to be to create a sense of digital insecurity for propaganda purposes. 

Background:

• Several Italian government and airport websites were targeted in a cyberattack claimed by a pro-Russian hacker group on 28 December.
• At the same time, the UK government warned that Russia is poised to launch a "wave of cyberattacks" against the UK, and it can "turn the lights off for millions of people".

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