French Officials Investigate Hack Of Television Network

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

In France, security officials are trying to figure out how hackers claiming allegiance to the so-called Islamic State managed to shut down a global television network. Last night, 11 channels belonging to the broadcaster TV5Monde went dark. The hackers kept the network off the air for hours. The group calling itself Cybercaliphate also posted pro-ISIS messages on the network's webpages.

The hacking comes after a deadly January attack by Islamists on a French satirical magazine. Today the French culture minister called an emergency meeting of media groups. Damien Leloup is a technology writer for the French newspaper Le Monde. It's not affiliated with the TV network. He spoke to me from the Le Monde newsroom in Paris, and we started with what was said at that emergency meeting.

DAMIEN LELOUP: Basically, the message the government was trying to convey was that medias have to take bigger steps towards protecting their infrastructures.

CORNISH: Step back for a moment. Can you describe exactly what the hackers were able to accomplish at TV5Monde?

LELOUP: First of all, they were able to take control of all the Twitter accounts and Facebook pages of TV5Monde. Then they managed to get inside the network of the TV station, so at this point, the people in charge at TV5Monde decided that they had to stop them from spreading inside the servers, and so they decided to cut everything. So at this point, everything went dark. All the TV channels went dark, their website and just about everything TV5Monde related.

CORNISH: Help us understand the scale here. I mean, do we have any sense of how long it would have taken to plan something like this - you know, how they were able to take over?

LELOUP: We have very scarce information, but we do know that they probably planned it several days in advance. Some suspicious activity was detected a few days ago on some remote servers belonging to TV5Monde. And the technical services now think they were inside before the real attack started. So they took their time to get access to whatever they wanted, and then just started getting deeper into the servers. But the actual methods used is not quite clear yet. We do know that the start of it all was a simple e-mail containing some malicious codes that somebody probably opened by mistake, mistaking it for a legitimate e-mail, and then they could get inside the first computer and then probably work their way up from there.

CORNISH: What's the significance of the scale of this attack? I mean, is it being seen as a different level of sophistication?

LELOUP: Yes, it is. After the January attacks, there was a huge wave of small-scale cyber attacks against French websites, but those were mostly small websites, not very well protected. And all those attacks were done by groups who claimed they were not jihadists and that - no particular sympathy for ISIS, but that they wanted to defend Islam. Now this group that claimed to have attacked TV5Monde, they do claim that they're close to ISIS which is something that actually we don't have any proof of. All the Twitter accounts used by ISIS that usually react very quickly when they want to spread a message did not say a word about this hack until very late today, and it was not as organized as it's usually the case when they want to claim something.

CORNISH: So at this point, are French security officials saying that the Cybercaliphate or that ISIS-connected hackers are responsible for this?

LELOUP: Yeah, actually. They're saying they are, and they think there are strong ties to ISIS. But not all experts agree on that point, including leading American experts because this group - it's not quite clear who they are, how many they are. They seem to have some dose of technical skills. The attack against TV5Monde was well-planned and probably well executed. But we can't be quite sure until the inquiries are over.

CORNISH: Damien Leloup - he is a technology writer for the French newspaper Le Monde. Thank you so much for speaking with us.

LELOUP: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.