A trio of Ukrainian hackers suspected of hacking dozens of companies, including in France, have been arrested during a joint Ukrainian and French police operation.
Operating under the name Egregor, they are said to be behind the hacking of the video game publisher Ubisoft, or of the daily Ouest-France.
They would have hacked the publisher of video games Ubisoft, but also the daily Ouest-France and even a computer security company.
A trio of Ukrainian hackers aged 33, 34 and 38 were arrested in a crackdown led jointly by France and Ukraine.
Members of the very active network known as Egregor, they are suspected of having hacked dozens of companies, including in France, with a "ransomware" attack similar to those which have been increasing recently against French hospitals. , like that of Dax or Villefranche-sur-Saône.
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Specialists in "double extortion"
Specialized in "double extortion" as RFI specifies, hackers always used the same scheme.
They infiltrate a company's computer network, for example with a malicious attachment and suck the data before encrypting it.
They then demand a ransom for a "key" to recover the data, and threaten to expose the stolen information on the web.
In the case of Ouest-France, which suffered an attack presumably on their part on November 21, the pirates had also succeeded in shutting down the presses which used to print the newspaper.
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This was all the more important given that the Egregor group was very active, to the point of having been spotted and reported by the FBI and by ANSSI, the National Agency for the Security of Information Systems.
However, these arrests do not sign the end of the group, since it seems that they are "affiliates" who are in the hands of justice.
That is to say small hands that use the "ransomware" developed by the thinking heads of the group, which are still free.