The United States announced this week that it had blocked one of the “most sophisticated” tools, which have been the source of computer attacks for two decades.
The conflict between Russia and the West is not only military or cultural : it is also digital and technological. The United States illustrated this on Tuesday, May 9, by neutralizing one of the Russian spyware programs “the most sophisticated“. To best fight against this program, the operation “Jellyfish», was initiated by the FBI, and orchestrated with several foreign countries. An American tool, Persée, was thus created for the occasion, in order to allow the American authorities to neutralize its Russian competitor, by interacting with it.
Named “Snake», Russian spyware has been very aggressive for twenty years against NATO members. The American cyberdefense agency Cisa also estimates its creation around 2003. According to the American Department of Justice, Snake allowed the FSB, responsible for internal security in Russia, to “steal hundreds of sensitive documents in at least 50 countries.This program, which operated through a unit called “Turlacould recover documents and data via a communications network and infected computers. Among these targets, the IT platforms of several governments or even certain media. The software “surprisingly has very few computer bugs, which is surprising given its complexity“Said cyber defense agencies. According to these, the attacks worked on Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems.
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The American Minister of Justice Merrick Garland, he wanted to reure and indicates that the United States will “continue to strengthen our collective defenses against the destabilization efforts of the Russian regime.In 2018, the German Foreign Office had already been the subject of such an attack. Other people have also been targeted in Belgium, Ukraine or Switzerland for a few years.
What about France then? Has it ever been targeted by such offensives? Were the State services aware of this operation? Contacted, the cabinets of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry responsible for the Digital Transition have not yet responded to requests from the Figaro.