SOPA images via Getty Images Just under 10,000 French people lost internet access after a “probable” cyberattack on the first day of the war in Ukraine.
WAR IN UKRAINE – Thousands of Internet users in France and Europe are denied access to the Internet due to a likely cyberattack on a satellite network that occurred at the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, according to agreed sources.
According to Orange, “nearly 9,000 subscribers” of satellite Internet service from its Nordnet subsidiary in France lost Internet access after a “cyber event” that occurred Feb. 24 at Viasat, the US satellite operator of which he is a spokesman. customer.
Eutelsat, the parent company of bigblu’s satellite Internet service, also confirmed to AFP on Friday, March 4, that about a third of the 40,000 bigblu subscribers in Europe (Germany, France, Hungary, Greece, Italy, Poland) were affected by the Viasat breakdown. .
Invited to answer a question about cyberattacks since the start of the war in Ukraine, the Secretary of State for Digital, Cédric Oh, this Saturday, March 5, pointed out to franceinfo that these attacks have been fairly limited at the moment, but are a really good reminder of it. internet shutdown as the first example, arguing that a cyberattack is the “probable” cause.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is also cyber aggression. Many #cyber attacks The Russians hit Ukraine and its infrastructure. France and all countries 🇪🇺 have raised the level of readiness. We remain extremely vigilant #Ukraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/9KwUlfuSvl
— Cedric O (@cedric_o) March 5, 2022
“There is a problem with the satellite operator Viasat, which is not French, but which serves several hundred or thousand French for satellite communications, and there has probably been a cyber attack and therefore a certain number of modems are not working,” explained Cédric Oh, who adds on Twitter that “France and all European countries have raised their level of readiness.”
In the United States, Viasat also reported Wednesday, March 2, that a “cyber event” caused a “partial network outage” for customers “in Ukraine and elsewhere” in Europe dependent on its KA-SAT satellite. Viasat did not provide any further details, limiting itself to stating that “the police and government partners” have been notified and are “cooperating” with the investigation.
Wind turbines turned off in several European countries
If the euphemism “cyber event” left no doubt that this was a cyber attack, then the fact was confirmed on Thursday, March 3, by General Michel Friedling, head of the French space command.
“Within a few days, shortly after the start of work, we had a satellite network that covers Europe in particular, and in particular Ukraine, which was the victim of a cyber attack, with tens of thousands of terminals that were returned to non-operational condition immediately after this attack,” he said during a press briefing organized by the Ministry of Defense, specifying that it was a “civilian Viasat network”.
These violations also affected 5,800 wind turbines in Germany and Central Europe with a total capacity of 11 gigawatts.
“Due to massive satellite outages in Europe, remote monitoring and control of thousands of wind power converters is currently only possible to a limited extent,” the manufacturer of these wind turbines, Germany’s Enercon, said in a press release this week. release.
Enercon says the problems started on February 24, the first day of the invasion of Ukraine. “There is no danger to the wind turbine,” which continues to generate power but can no longer be remotely restarted if necessary, the manufacturer explains.
A report by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), cited by the daily newspaper Handelsblatt on Friday, said it was “possible” that a cyber attack was the cause of the failure.
Military and cyber experts fear that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict will trigger an outbreak of cyberattacks, a “cyberarmageddon” with significant repercussions for civilians in Ukraine and Russia, as well as the rest of the world, in an overflow or “splash”, according to a term recently used by a French military official. .
See also The HuffPost: War in Ukraine: Behind the scenes of French soldiers leaving for Romania