Security News
Today, the French national cyber-security agency warned of an ongoing series of attacks against a large number of French organizations coordinated by the Chinese-backed APT31 hacking group. Partage d'IoCs relatifs une campagne d'attaques du mode opératoire APT31 en France.
French lawmakers have launched an investigation into Israeli offensive cybersecurity company NSO Group after they learned French President Emmanuel Macron topped a list of 14 heads of states potentially targeted by the company's spyware. The world leaders were potential targets, according to a list of 50,000 phone numbers believed linked to the NSO Group and leaked to Amnesty International and the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories.
Amnesty International and French journalism advocacy organisation Forbidden Stories say they've acquired a leaked list of individuals targeted by users of Israeli spyware-for-law-enforcement operator NSO Group, and that Heads of State, academics, diplomats, human rights advocates, and media figures are among those targeted. Perhaps the most explosive claim is that NSO products were used to target family members of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the days before he was murdered in Istanbul.
French prosecutors have charged a French IT company that allegedly helped the regime of Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi spy on opposition figures who were later detained and tortured, sources close to the inquiry said Thursday. Amesys, which is now owned by the Bull technology group, and its former chief, Philippe Vannier, were charged with complicity in acts of torture on June 18, the sources said.
Cheeky clothing firm French Connection, also known as FCUK, has become the latest victim of ransomware, with a gang understood to be linked to REvil having penetrated its back-end - making off with a selection of private internal data. Founded in 1972 by current chief executive Stephen Marks, French Connection made a name for itself when it adopted the not-actually-rude-honest slogan "FCUK" in its advertising in the early 2000s.
Prosecutors have charged four executives at two French companies accused of aiding Libya's former strongman Moamer Kadhafi and Egyptian authorities to spy on opposition figures who were later detained and tortured, a rights group said Tuesday. The former chief of Amesys, Philippe Vannier, was charged in Paris last week with "Complicity in acts of torture," according to the International Federation of Human Rights, which was confirmed by judicial sources.
Russian Alexander Vinnik, jailed last year for money laundering, begins an appeal at a Paris court Tuesday, as prosecutors challenge his acquittal on charges that he masterminded massive ransomware attacks. While a lower court in December sentenced him to five years in jail for money laundering, it acquitted Vinnik, 41, of 13 out of 14 charges of cyber piracy.
Thales has been selected by the French Ministry of the Interior to deliver several hundred pre-registration kiosks at various border crossing points. France will be equipped with a biometric solution to streamline and secure its air, land and sea border crossings.
A hospital in southwest France has seen some of its IT systems paralysed by a "Ransomware" cyberattack, its management said Tuesday, the third such incident in the last month. Hospital workers have had to revert to working with pens and paper, since digital patient records are not available.
Here in France, we've just experienced the country's biggest ever data breach of customer records, involving some half a million medical patients. Data journalism couldn't be easier, and indeed the newspaper hacks have been on the beat, contacting the doctors listed in the file and phoning up some of the patients on their mobile numbers to ask how they feel about the data breach.