“Since this summer, 400 companies have been ransomed”, according to a specialized journalist

Cyberattacks have become “unfortunately a great classic”, says Damien Bancal on franceinfo Tuesday, November 1. According to the founder of the specialized site Zataz.com, “Since this summer, since the Corbeil-Essonnes affair, more than 400 other companies have been infiltrated and held to ransom. It’s a real problem”.

The latest victim is Thales, who opened an internal investigation after being hacked by Lockbit 3.0. The Russian-speaking group, which has existed for three years, had already attacked the Thalès group in January 2022, “by stealing a lot of source code”. The matter seems more serious today according to Damien Bancal: “This time they indicate that they have customer data, files and programs.” Even though Lockbit 3.0 can very well “tell anything and everything”, specifies the journalist of Zataz.com. The goal of hackers is to scare people in order to collect as much money as possible in their blackmail: “They announced that they were going to release in five days what they stole, because they are trying to exert pressure.”

But Thalès is not the only victim of Lockbit 3.0. Since the French company was targeted on Monday October 31, dozens of companies have been attacked according to Damien Bancal: “Just for Lockbit 3.0, when we talk about Thalès, there have been about thirty other companies, including a large group of accountants in France.” Except that the Thalès group specializes in aerospace, defense and security… The company has found “smarter than yourself”according to the cyber-intelligence specialist. “The problem with hackers is that they will always find a way to infiltrate, to impact. It just takes an email lying around somewhere, a file or an update.”

On August 22, 2022, the South Ile-de-France Hospital Center (CHSF), located in Corbeil-Essonnes, launched its white plan after a cyberattack that had occurred a few hours earlier. After demanding a ransom of 10 million dollars, the Lockbit 3.0 hacker group finally released 11 GB of sensitive content on the internet on Friday, September 23, including personal patient information.