The town of Gravelines said this Thursday, April 25, that it was the victim of a cyberattack. And the consequences of this offensive are not yet known.
Many French cities were the target of cyberattacks during the month of April. We can thus cite Saint-Nazaire, Albi, and even smaller municipalities, such as Floirac, which is located in the territory of Bordeaux Métropole. And since yesterday, we can count a new victim in this list, with the northern town of Gravelines!
A cryptovirus attack
“And on to the next one!” » as Jacques Brel’s song would say. On the morning of Thursday, April 25, the IT department of Gravelines town hall had to deal with a number of foreign malfunctions.
“ We realized that servers were starting to overheat, that files were disappearing, so we made the decision to shut down all of our servers » thus indicated to France Blue North the general director of town hall services, Grégoire Paccou.
A cryptovirus was finally discovered in one of the town hall’s computers. This is software that encrypts an entity’s data, usually to obtain a ransom payment in exchange for the decryption key. At this time, no ransom demand has been sent.
The extent of the damage is not yet known
Technicians from the IT department have since been hard at work investigating the problem. They are supported by a team from Orange’s cyber defense subsidiary in this work, which should continue throughout the weekend. For the moment, the extent of the damage resulting from this cyberattack is not known, and it would take almost a week to obtain a first overall picture.
On the municipal side, as is often the case when these attacks take place, the agents went back from the computer to pencil and paper to carry out their missions. Certain functions, such as making an appointment to renew a passport or ID card, cannot currently be performed. Finally, the CNIL and ANSSI (National Agency for Information Systems Security) were contacted, and a complaint was filed.
Source : The voice of the North, France 3 Region
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