Since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, this cybersecurity specialist, co-founder of the NGO "Hackers Without Borders", only sleeps a few hours a night.

"It's pretty crazy what's going on, especially on Telegram. There have been some pretty exceptional data leaks and an absolutely crazy upsurge in cyberattacks for the past ten days, both on the Russian side and on the Ukrainian side," explains the young man. 31 years old, installed in a restaurant in Rennes.

Among the targets, nuclear power plants, Russian and Ukrainian state agencies, banks and even companies that work with Russia.

Holder of a BTS in computer management, the Franco-Senegalese, alias @_SaxX_ on Twitter, defines himself as a fan of "hacking".

He didn't have his first computer until he was 18, and wrote his first lines of code with the sole aim of "winning video games faster".

After ten years spent advising companies and administrations, identifying flaws and getting paid for the service rendered, sometimes "5,000 euros after five minutes spent on a website", the 30-year-old is now campaigning for cyber protection.

In early February, he co-founded the NGO "Hackers Without Borders", which already has more than 300 members.

Clément Domingo, alias "SaxX", founder of the NGO "Hackers without borders" in Rennes, March 8, 2022 Damien MEYER AFP / Archives

"In times of war, in cyberspace, it doesn't matter whether you are a hospital or a humanitarian association, you are at the mercy of cybercriminals. Our objective is to offer a digital shield to NGOs", recalls the one who claims the cap of "ethical" hacker to "secure our democracy".

Recently, the servers of the International Committee of the Red Cross were the victims of a serious cyberattack.

-"Real attacks"-

Glued to his screen full of geek stickers, Clément Domingo deciphers more than ever the cyber war between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian hackers, as well as "cyberbelligerents" who enter the dance "for the sole purpose of winning money".

“You might think that as a French citizen, you are unlikely to be impacted, but you can be if your data is exposed when a company is hacked,” he observes.

We can also receive a "very well shot" email from a cyber-hacker showing the video of a Ukrainian family under the bombs and inviting us to donate one euro to support Ukrainian civilians.

To protect yourself, he calls for "having a strong password, having several email addresses and remaining vigilant".

According to the hacker from Rennes, you don't need "to have a lot of skills to do harm".

A "world famous" search engine thus makes it possible to recognize any object connected to the Internet in any country, from the police IP camera to the baby monitor, and to launch attacks.

“Since the start of the war, I have spent a lot of time digging into information that appears on social networks when I know it will be useful or harmful to the populations. We have various contacts within the police or in the ministries to alert as quickly as possible", he explains.

For a few days, a group bearing the name of "IT Army", the cyberarmy of voluntary hackers raised by Ukraine, turns out to be in fact piloted by pro-Russian hackers and offers malicious software to download.

Most of the time, the attacks, which can occur "every minute", remain invisible.

Only a handful have been claimed, such as the hacking of six Russian television channels, or come to light, such as the attack on the infrastructure of the Ukrainian rail network.

“We are witnessing real attacks. Trains carrying Ukrainian civilians fleeing their country had to make very long stops after an attack which erased data from railway sites”, he recalls.

© 2022 AFP