A potential cyberattack crippled thousands of Internet users in Europe

Published on 03/4/2022 at 22:12Reading Time: 3 Minutes

DThousands of Internet users in France and Europe are deprived of the Internet due to a potential cyberattack on a satellite network, which according to concurrent sources occurred at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

According to Orange, “nearly 9,000 customers” of a satellite Internet service of its subsidiary Nordnet in France have been denied Internet access following a “cyber-event” that occurred on February 24 within Viasat, a US satellite operator, in which Since he is the customer.

Eutelsat, the parent company of BigBlue satellite internet service, also confirmed to AFP on Friday evening that about a third of the 40,000 BigBlue customers in Europe (Germany, France, Hungary, Greece, Italy, Poland) were affected by the breakdown on Viasat.

In the United States, Viasat said Wednesday that a “cyber incident” had caused a “partial network outage” for customers “in Ukraine and elsewhere” relying on the Ka-Sat satellite.

Viasat did not provide any further details, limiting itself to pointing out that “police and state partners” had been notified and were “assisting” with the investigation.

While the euphemism “cyber-event” left little doubt that it was a cyber attack, the fact was confirmed on Thursday by General Michel Friedling, who heads the French Space Command.

“For a few days, shortly after the start of operations, we have a satellite network covering Europe in particular and Ukraine in particular which was the victim of a cyberattack, with thousands of terminals that were immediately deactivated This attack”, he indicated during a press briefing organized by the Ministry of Defence, specifying that he was talking about “a civilian network, Viasat”.

Towards the wrath of cyber attacks?

Military and cyber experts fear that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict will lead to an outbreak of cyber attacks, for example “cyber-Armageddon” with significant consequences for civilians in Ukraine and Russia, but also in the rest of the world. The spillover or “splash” effect to refer to the term used recently by a French military officer.

For now, the worst-case scenario seems to have been avoided, with the observed attacks rooted in their impact and geographic scale.

Cybersecurity companies have seen attacks in Ukraine with a new data-devastating virus, the real effects of which are little known.

In Russia, institutional sites have been made inaccessible from abroad, to protect them from denial of service (DOS) attacks that routinely disable them.