{"id":60722,"date":"2025-04-29T17:04:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T17:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/60722\/"},"modified":"2025-04-29T17:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T17:04:11","slug":"france-blames-russia-for-cyber-attacks-since-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/60722\/","title":{"rendered":"France blames Russia for cyber attacks since 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, France\u2019s foreign ministry directly accused Russia\u2019s GRU military intelligence agency of carrying out cyber attacks on a dozen targets\u2014including government ministries, defense companies, and think tanks\u2014since 2021, aiming to destabilize the country. <\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

The accusations, levelled at GRU unit APT28, which officials said was based in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, are not the first by a Western power, but it is the first time Paris has blamed the Russian state on the basis of its own intelligence,\u00a0News.Az<\/a> reports citing Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ministry said in a statement that APT28\u2019s attacks on France go as far back as 2015, when the station TV5 Monde was taken off air in a hack claimed by purported Islamic State militants.<\/p>\n

France said APT28 had been behind the attack, and another in the 2017 presidential election when emails linked to the party and campaign of the eventual winner, Emmanuel Macron, were leaked and mixed with disinformation.<\/p>\n

According to a report by France\u2019s National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI), APT28 has sought to obtain strategic intelligence from entities across Europe and North America.
Officials said the government had decided to go public to keep the public informed at a time of uncertainty in domestic politics and over Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine.
Russia\u2019s embassy in Paris did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

ANSSI said there had been a jump last year in the number of attacks on French ministries, local administrations, defence companies, aerospace firms, think tanks and entities in the financial and economic sector.<\/p>\n

They said APT28\u2019s most recent attack was in December, and that some 4,000 cyber attacks had been ascribed to Russian actors in 2024, an increase of 15% on 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese destabilising activities are unacceptable and unworthy of a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council,\u201d the foreign ministry said.
\u201cAlongside its partners, France is determined to use all means at its disposal to anticipate, deter and respond to Russia\u2019s malicious behaviour in cyberspace.\u201d<\/p>\n

APT28 has been active worldwide since at least 2004, primarily in the field of cyberespionage, hacking experts say.
In May 2024, Germany accused APT28 of launching cyber attacks on its defence and aerospace firms and ruling party, as well as targets in other countries.<\/p>\n

At the time, Russia\u2019s embassy in Berlin called the accusations \u201canother unfriendly step aimed at inciting anti-Russian sentiments in Germany\u201d.<\/p>\n

News.Az<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday, France\u2019s foreign ministry directly accused Russia\u2019s GRU military intelligence agency of carrying out cyber attacks on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[31424,2000,299,36,332],"class_list":{"0":"post-60722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-cyber-attack","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114422341144676326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}