The website of the French National Assembly (French: Assemblée nationale) was on Monday hit by a cyber attack that managed to take the site offline and was carried out by pro-Russian hackers.
Hackers attacked French government websites and broadcast propaganda messages such as "Respect Russia or we will continue the war against you".
French authorities said the attack took place on a website that used a shared content management system, developed six years ago by the IT services company Abtel.
“This system, which was relatively secure six years ago, is no longer secure. We warned our customers months ago that there was significant risk, but it takes a large budget to rebuild a website from scratch," a spokesperson said.
Half of the affected websites have now been restored, although French authorities claim otherwise.
The pro-Kremlin group behind a series of DDoS attacks in recent months has attacked Polish airport and e-government websites, among others, following the delivery of Leopard tanks from Warsaw to Ukraine, as well as targets in Denmark, the Czech Republic and Lithuania.
Officials they told franceinfo that they cannot yet confirm that the cyberattack came from Russian hackers, but you are looking into the matter of "identifying" the attacks.
Russian groups have a history of supporting French and anti-establishment protests, among others supporting the Yellow Vest movement, which rocked President Macron's first term.
From Monday afternoon, Mr website of the National Assembly της Γαλλίας βρισκόταν ακόμη υπό συντήρηση. Η ομάδα hacker καυχιόταν στο Telegram ότι ο ιστότοπος “δεν μπορεί να ανακάμψει όλη την ημέρα μετά την επίθεσή μας”. Ισχυρίστηκαν επίσης ότι στόχευσαν τον ιστότοπο της Γερουσίας, αλλά μάλλον δεν κατάφεραν να τον επηρεάσουν.
