The French finance ministry didn’t waste any time reacting to a vicious cyber attack by immediately shutting down 10,000 of its computers. According to reports, the hackers used Internet addresses in China to search for documents and target the mailboxes of about 150 people working on the Group of 20 (G20) industrial and developing nations, which France is hosting this year.
"The military are taking care of it," Budget Minister Francois Baroin announced in an interview on Europe1 radio. "There's a lead, although it's impossible to confirm it for the time being." Baroin also said that the “spectacular” attack was “probably the first time” the French government’s computer system has fallen victim to such an egregious cyber attack.
France’s government isn’t the only political establishment to be hit by hackers in recent weeks. TechZone360 recently reported that hackers attacked dozens of South Korean government and private websites, sending a warning that the country's computers are under grave threat.
As per an AP report, South Korea's National Cyber Security Center said they had seen signs of a "denial of service" attack, in which large numbers of computers try to connect to a site at the same time, in an attempt to overwhelm the server.
In a statement, printed in the AP news, a top South Korean cyber security company, AhnLab, said that the targets included websites at South Korea's presidential office, the Foreign Ministry, the National Intelligence Service, U.S. Forces Korea, and some major financial institutions. However, the Korea Communication Commission reported no immediate damage to its websites.
Edited by
Tammy Wolf
