After the cyberattacks which have reduced two hospitals to "all paper" in France in recent days, Emmanuel Macron confirmed Thursday a plan of one billion euros to strengthen the cybersecurity of sensitive systems.
The Head of State, Emmanuel Macron, listened for an hour on Thursday morning, by videoconference, doctors and executives of the hospitals of Dax and Villefranche-sur-Saône tell him how hackers completely paralyzed their establishment on the 8th and the February 15.
Patient records, telephony, surgical devices, medication management, appointments, bed and doctor allocation, everything has been blocked.
Post-it notes, hand-made service charts and appointment books have somehow taken over, but operations have been unscheduled and patients sent to other hospitals.
>> READ ALSO
- Why hospitals are the new preferred target of cyber attacks
Teams from the National Information Systems Security Agency (Anssi) on site have since been trying to rebuild healthy computer networks and recover data, part of which was protected in backups.
It will probably take weeks to regain normal function.
Hospitals, like all administrations, have "strict instructions to never pay" ransoms, the Elysee recalled on Wednesday, while these attacks quadrupled in 2020, 11% of which targeted hospitals.
In the midst of a pandemic, these attacks constitute "a crisis within the crisis", noted the Head of State.
Create a "security ecosystem"
The executive has planned to allocate one billion euros, including 720 million public funds, to strengthen the sector, triple its turnover to 25 billion euros in 2025 and double its workforce.
"Many players are attacked every day and are the subject of ransom demands, without saying it," said Emmanuel Macron.
"What you have been through shows both our vulnerability and the importance of stepping up and investing."
>> READ ALSO
- "Cyber attacks against hospitals have jumped 500% since the arrival of the Covid"
He welcomed the forthcoming creation of a "Cyber Campus" at La Défense with some sixty of the main public and private players in the sector, which must create a "security ecosystem, more cohesive and more efficient".
The networks that launch ransomware attacks are only a dozen, according to Guillaume Poupard, director of Anssi, recalling the recent successes in Ukraine against the Emotet and Egregor networks, thanks to international police cooperation with strong French involvement. .