The town hall of Lille (Nord) announced on Wednesday March 1 that it had been the victim of a cyberattack. “All public services are maintained, at the Town Hall, in the district town halls and all of our equipment with appropriate operation”, writes the City in a press release.
The municipality switchboard, on the other hand, as well as the landline telephone numbers of sports and cultural facilities are currently inaccessible. Communications must be restored during the day of March 2. Certain administrative procedures, such as civil status, may also take longer.
“At this time, the technical diagnosis is still in progress to determine the origin and the gravity of the intrusion”, writes the town hall again. No difficulty has so far been observed on the data stored in the computer system or servers. As soon as the intrusion was discovered, Wednesday at 11:40 p.m. by the National Agency for Computer Security (Anssi), “security and data protection measures” had been taken, communicates the town hall.
A complaint was filed and an investigation opened by the judicial police. All the computers of the municipal services of Lille, Hellemmes and Lomme (twinned with Lille) have been turned off pending the diagnosis. The city’s surveillance cameras, meanwhile, are still working.
Local communities, the second favorite target of hackers
In its annual report on cyber threats, Anssi pointed out that local authorities were the second most favored targets for attackers (23% of ransomware processed or reported to Anssi in 2022), behind VSEs, SMEs and ETIs (40 %) but ahead of public health establishments (10%). According to the agency, hackers are now targeting “service providers, suppliers, subcontractors, supervisory bodies and the broader ecosystem of their targets” as well as their firewalls, routers, and peripheral equipment in order to obtain “discreet and lasting access to the networks of their victims”.
However, 65% of communities with less than 3,500 inhabitants think that the cyber risk is low or do not know how to assess it, according to a study conducted by Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr, the platform for assisting victims of attacks. A guide was published on this subject in July by the National Commission for Computing and Liberties (Cnil), intended for local elected officials and territorial agents to remind them of their obligations and responsibilities in terms of cybersecurity.
Last September, the city of Caen (Calvados) was the victim of a cyberattack, rendering the city’s website, internal messaging and civil status services inoperative. A similar attack targeted the Normandy region in February, which made regional sites inaccessible. Guadeloupe, the departments of Seine-Maritime and Seine-et-Marne were also affected.
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