Among the 5,000 gendarmes who opened the test e-mail sent by the authorities, 10% clicked on the associated fraudulent link. An initiative as interesting as it is worrying, 130 days before the Paris Olympics.
The gendarmes and deputy gendarmes of the Île-de-France region (RGIF) have been the actors of an XXL test in recent days, at the origin of a management which wanted to know where the active forces stood in the game of cybersecurity. 9,000 police officers received a real-false scam email, in which a booby-trapped link was hosted. Four months before the Paris Olympic Games, the results are hardly reassuring.
1 in 10 police officers who opened the email click on the malicious link
It was in the middle of the night that the police received a rather tempting email. In the subject line, the mention “Exclusive allocation of places for the 2024 Olympic Games events” obviously catches the eye, and that is, so to speak, the aim of the approach: to encourage people to click and open the electronic message.
Of the 9,000 recipients, 5,000 opened the email. If many gave in to curiosity, some of them fell into the trap. 500 soldiers clicked on the booby-trapped link contained in the email, due to lack of vigilance.
In total, among the police officers who opened the email, 10% clicked on the fraudulent link. A click-through rate that would delight any group of hackers.
More fear than harm for the inattentive gendarmes, but a serious call to order
However, several clues were able to alert the gendarmes to a minimum of attentiveness. First, the sender’s address: “gendarmerieinterieur-gouv.fr”, instead of “gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr”. We can also cite the author of the message, falsely signed by the boss of the Ile-de-France gendarmerie, Xavier Ducept, who obviously would not have sent such a message.
Those who made the mistake of clicking on the link landed on a page with the air of “more fear than harm”, where the reassuring message “ Phishing, phishing, the link you just selected in the email was a trapped location » brought the heartbeat down to a more reasonable rate.
This exercise makes us think of a similar trap which took place at the Assises de la Sécurité (big annual cyber meeting where professionals in the sector meet) a few years ago, at the origin of a somewhat teasing company. , which had caused numerous victims, fortunately without consequences. Concerning the gendarmes who will be responsible for the security of events like the Paris Olympics, the test has the merit of showing that a cyber vigilance exercise is more necessary than ever, to make this historic event a success.
Sources: The ParisianClubic
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