Sabotage of fiber optic cables, an act of cyberterrorism?

• Malicious acts on the national fiber optic network led to slowdowns and cuts in Internet access on Wednesday in several cities, including Grenoble, Besançon, Reims and Strasbourg.

• An investigation was opened for "deterioration of property likely to harm the fundamental interests of the Nation", "obstructing an automated data processing system" and "criminal association".

• These acts, on an unprecedented scale, mainly disturbed the customers of the Free operation, and, to a lesser extent, those of SFR.

Grenoble, Besançon, Reims and Strasbourg… Several cities suffered major slowdowns and cuts in Internet access this Wednesday, after damage to cables on the French fiber optic network, malicious acts of an unprecedented scale. .

In the process, the Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation for "deterioration of property likely to harm the fundamental interests of the Nation", "obstructing an automated data processing system" and "criminal association".

The investigations having been entrusted to the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ), but also to the DGSI, would the track of cyberterrorism be considered by the authorities?

Three points of contact targeted

On Wednesday morning, it was without their Internet connection that Free customers and, to a lesser extent, those of SFR, woke up in certain cities in France, including Grenoble, Besançon, Reims, Lyon, Alsace and Ile. -of France.

"Three of the four arteries of Free" have "been vandalized", sources told our colleagues from AFP.

SFR, for its part, noted “several fiber cuts” around Lyon and in Ile-de-France.

On the other hand, their competitor Bouygues Telecom "does not use the links affected by these malfunctions and mobile and fixed services are provided normally", said the group in a press release.

Orange, which owns the majority of the fiber optic network in France, was also not affected by the cuts, according to one of its spokespersons.

If the cuts occurred almost everywhere in France, it is because the perpetrators of these acts cut "long distance" cables, called "backbone", which are used to interconnect Internet traffic between different geographical areas at three points of Paris-Lyon, Paris-Strasbourg and Paris-Lille connections.

“These are arteries, that is to say long-distance cables that connect the different regions over hundreds of kilometers,” explains Michel Combot, director general of the French telecoms federation at

.

It only took a few hours for the operators to restore the network, in particular by rerouting it via other cables.

"It's a bit like highways being cut off and traffic having to be diverted onto national ones," adds Sami Slim, CEO of Telehouse, a data center operator specializing in information routing, to

.

“You have to be in the business”

However, damage to fiber optic cables is quite common, explains the specialist, especially during construction sites.

But what challenges is the concordance: “The operations took place in specific areas, which were clearly targeted, and in a concomitant manner.

It can't be an accident,” continues Sami Slim.

For Philippe Le Grand, president of InfraNum, the federation of digital infrastructures, the authors "knew clearly what they were doing": "You have to know the network, have tools, know where these cables pass - the location is not not known to everyone – and which ones to reach to harm, ”he believes.

"To tell the difference between the cables, you have to be in the business", says Sami Slim.

However, it is difficult to speak of “cyberterrorism”, according to the three experts.

“It's tricky without knowing the motivations.

In the cases of cyberterrorism, it is rather attacks on satellites or servers of companies or institutions, possibly with ransom demands, it has a much greater impact, ”analyzes Michel Combot.

“It is the extent of the degradations and their potentially strategic impact which led the prosecution to start on sabotage qualifications in particular”, confides a security source to

, sweeping away the hypothesis of cyberterrorism.

Unclear motivations

But the motivations of the authors still remain a mystery.

“It is difficult to understand the claims”, adds the president of the French telecoms federation, evoking the possibility of revenge against operators.

A question that Philippe Le Grand also struggles to answer: “We are in a coordinated malicious act to penalize, but who?

The citizens ?

Network operators?

The operators ?

It's hard to say ".

“There is a will to harm that goes beyond a simple small act of vandalism, but there is no villainous motive, it targets several operators and there is no demand for ransom”, considers de his Sami Slim side.

Our file on fiber optics

Believing that such cuts are likely to have dramatic consequences, players in the sector are calling for tougher penalties.

"We reiterate our call to the future government to intensify the fight and prevention against these acts of vandalism and we call for tougher criminal penalties against their perpetrators," argues Michel Combot.

The sector has already planned to demand from the new government a “big plan on the resilience of our networks so that this kind of act cannot have too great consequences”, according to Philippe Le Grand.

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• Justice

• Miscellaneous facts

• Optical fiber

• Internet

• Free

• Investigation

• Grenoble

• Besancon

• Reims

• Strasbourg

• SFR

• Video

• Isere

• Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes