“They only attacked the window”: Montpellier targeted by a cyberattack claimed by Russian hackers

Sur les réseaux, un collectif baptisé NoName a revendiqué cette cyberattaque “contre les pays hostiles à la Russie”.

Ce mardi 31 décembre, une cyberattaque internationale a visé nombre de collectivités en France. Dont le site internet de la mairie de Montpellier. Sans conséquence selon Manu Reynaud, adjoint au numérique. Mais la vigilance est de rigueur.

According to the message posted on social networks, the collective is called NoName. It is represented by a powerful and aggressive bear (symbol of Russia) and it claims responsibility for a massive cyberattack carried out on Tuesday, December 31. In France, many communities have been affected. Christian Estrosi, Mayor of Nice, has also specified that this “serious and unacceptable act will be the subject of a complaint”…

“All data, whether sensitive or not, is hosted elsewhere, on other servers”

Like Nîmes and many others, the City of Montpellier has been targeted. “I don't have the figures but it's a denial of service attack,” explains Manu Reynaud, deputy mayor in charge of digital issues.They send thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of messages on a service so that it is no longer operational. For us, it was the website that was targeted and it had no consequences. You should know that the website is a window. The store is not behind this window but in another shopping center to continue the metaphor. All the data concerning the city hall and the metropolis, sensitive or not, are hosted elsewhere, on other servers.”

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No consequences therefore: the difficulties concerning email exchanges encountered at the beginning of the week by the city hall of Montpellier are therefore not to be attributed to these cyberattacks. “It's completely different, emphasizes Manu Reynaud. We have located and identified the problem, we know how to fix it, the technical migrations have been carried out, it is internal management.”

Cybersecurity risks taken into account “in the same way as a civil security disaster for example”

The elected official categorically differentiates this problem with the cyberattack that the community suffered on Tuesday. And which is likely to happen again. “This is something quite common. It can happen every month. We are extremely vigilant about it, with internal awareness-raising. Here, there is a geopolitical claim but it can happen that it is a form of “ransomware”. The goal is then to block or steal all the data, to block the servers and demand a ransom. It has already happened, like in Marseille, or closer to us in Frontignan. Here too, we are extremely vigilant, there are many things at stake and we take this very seriously, with a crisis unit, chain of command and responsibilities if it should happen. Cybersecurity is taken into consideration in the same way as a civil security disaster for example.” And Manu Reynaud insists on the robustness of passwords for each user. Before concluding: “Well, it's only the window that was attacked.”

“They're trying to ban us”

In a long post on X (ex-Twitter), the collective claimed responsibility for its attacks. Here's the beginning.
“They're trying to ban us – so we're doing it right! ?
Yesterday, the official Telegram channel of the most active pro-Russian hacker group NoName057, which was subscribed to by more than 85,000 (!) users, was deleted by the administrator's administration?
We consider this a blow to Russia's defense capability in the information war that the West and its satellites are waging against our Motherland. The repression of the Telegram messenger administration against us and our allies from Russian and international hacker groups the day before is another proof of our effectiveness – we are feared, and rightly so."

On the other side, the NoName collective, if proven, does not hide and announces its intentions to “continue to attack the coalition of countries hostile to Russia and favorable to the criminal Zelensky regime“. Specifying: “We are unstoppable!” Fingers crossed.

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