Attention, trial under tension! Four former technicians from the electricity carrier RTE were tried on Tuesday February 28 for three offenses relating to acts of computer hacking – obstruction, introduction and modification of an automated data processing system.
At the end of June and the end of July 2022, on the sidelines of two union actions carried out to demand a rise in wages, the electricity carrier had noted the cessation of remote control of 25 electrical substations in the North, on the territory of the group of Flandres Hainaut network maintenance.
“No response from management”
At the end of a judicial investigation entrusted to the DGSI, four agents of RTE, thirty-year-olds since dismissed, were implicated. They were part of a team of 18 agents in charge of maintenance, protection and remote control of the electrical network.
“We had no response from management on the salary negotiations”, justified one of the defendants at the helm. “This action was not insignificant, but we did not think it would take this magnitude,” adds another.
Admittedly, the management of RTE is already experienced in the loss of telecontrol during union actions. “It is a symbolic act practiced for a long time and tolerated by the company, because carried out in the rules of the game and without impact on the distribution of electricity”, points out an expert quoted by the defense, Jean-François Lejeune.
Investigation opened for sabotage
“When there is a local takeover, the strikers make a phone call to dispatch, but there it was impossible to identify these stops as a trade union maneuver,” retorts the legal director of RTE. In the absence of a claim, the company is surprised by the remote shutdown of the posts in the early morning in June and July. This led her to report a computer intrusion to the courts.
Result: the legal file initially aims for the qualification of computer sabotage, a very heavy charge, since abandoned. It is the only cyber crime that exists in France – the other cyber offenses being qualified as misdemeanors.
It was “a high working hypothesis”, justified in view of the sensitivity of the victim organization, an operator of vital importance, explains at the hearing Sophie Gschwind, deputy prosecutor, who finally requested six eight-month suspended prison sentence and fines of 7,000 euros.
Signal group and Excel formula
“We have known from the start that the four former RTE agents cannot be described as saboteurs”, fulminates opposite Jérôme Karsenti, the lawyer for one of the defendants. “It’s the spirit of the times, how to penalize any form of social mobilization,” he adds. This fear of a criminalization of the right to strike was also shared by the CGT, activists of the union organization having demonstrated in support in front of the Paris courthouse.
As the investigation will show later, the four agents had in fact programmed the stoppage of the telecontrol in advance. After plugging into the substations, they entered the system command “Shut down” along with a number. That is as many seconds before it stops. To calculate the time needed to program for the stations to all stop at the same time, one of the respondents had shared an Excel formula.
The four men had finally agreed by creating a group a few weeks earlier on Signal messaging, deleted from their phones before their hearings by the police department.
Risk Debate
Shutdowns of the remote control of electrical substations which resulted for the Parisian management in a loss of visibility and control over this small part of the network, forcing the company to dispatch technicians to the site. But “there was no power outage and remote control was quickly restored,” says expert Jean-François Lejeune.
On the contrary, for RTE engineers quoted by the company, the stops led to a risk of power cuts and the creation of a domino effect which could have blocked the distribution of electricity to England or Belgium. The judgment was reserved.