In Fouesnant, in Finistère, the year ended badly and it begins the same way. The town hall has just been the victim, at the end of December, of a ransomware attack, described as “large-scale”.
In addition to this town of around 10,000 inhabitants, the community of municipalities was also affected by this computer attack. The cybercriminal franchise involved in this hacking is currently unknown.
Degraded services
“All community services are impacted and rendered inoperable, except the passport and national identity card service which operates normally because it is administered on a secure line by the State,” said the Fouesnant town hall on its website.
Same observation for the urban community, which reports degraded services. “As far as possible, users are asked to defer requests,” specifies the community.
Return to the rise
If the year 2022 ended with a slight decline, the number of ransomware attacks has started to rise again. In France, several communities have been victims of this type of attack, such as Ozoir-la-Ferrière in Seine-et-Marne or Lille last spring. The Paris prosecutor’s office, in an annual report communicated in mid-December, indicated that it had opened 512 new criminal investigations following ransomware attacks in 2023, compared to 420 last year.
A bad trend also observed at the global level. In a recent podcast, executives from Chainalysis, this firm specializing in blockchain investigations, also noted the return of ransomware in 2023. It will be “important to understand what made it possible to reduce” this criminal activity last year, noted Kimberly Grauer, the company’s research director.