how does the Calvados Gendarmerie fight against cyber threats?
It took more than four months for certain websites of the city of Caen to be accessible again, after the cyber attack which paralyzed part of the city’s services on September 26, 2022. Cyber threats are increasingly important according to the Calvados Gendarmerie, which details the means implemented to fight against this phenomenon. A few figures to better understand.
85
This is the number of CN Tech, “new technology correspondents” in the jargon of the gendarmes. There are 85 soldiers in Calvados to have undergone specific training in these complex areas. They are distributed in all the brigades of the department, and become both investigative missions and educational missions. There are 6,500 in total in France, and the authorities aim to increase this number to 10,000.
108
The gendarmes carried out 108 pre-diagnoses. These free educational devices are intended to review everything related to IT in a community, business or health establishment. : from passwords to the Wifi connection, through the equipment and security measures already taken. Imagined in the spring of 2022, and launched – coincidentally – the day after the cyberattack in Caen, they are in great demand. It is very simply a questionnaire of 150 questions to assess the fragility of an organization -or on the contrary its resistance- to cyber threats. You must contact the address [email protected] to volunteer for this diagnosis.
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“There are good students, even very good ones. But there are also very bad ones” says a warrant officer in charge of these pre-diagnostics. Even a very small municipality can be the target of a cyberattack. “They tell me ‘Why would I be attacked? There’s nothing to steal.'” Corn a town hall has many personal data of its citizens, photocopies of identity cards, civil status registers, as much valuable information that hackers can resell. “The question is not ‘if’ I will be attacked, but ‘when’.”
530
Pedagogy is at the heart of the actions of the gendarmes, to avoid damage as much as possible. Already 530 people, employees of the departmental council, elected officials, staff of town hall or community of municipalities, or even unions, have been trained to have the right gestures. Do not connect a USB key found somewhere on his computer. Do not post passwords on the wall. Do not click on a link in an email without verifying the sender.
3 or 4
The number of Calvados town halls supported by cyberattacks seems relatively low: three or four. “He is vastly underestimated” according to Christophe Junqua, the colonel of the gendarmes of Calvados. The scale of cyberattacks is very difficult to estimate, as victims rarely come forward when it comes to businesses. “For a matter of image and reputation”, some prefer to pay the requested ransom to recover their data rather than file a complaint. What the gendarmes strongly advise against. “It’s not the contract of trust” says Christophe Junqua: there is no guarantee that criminals will actually give you back your data after pocketing the money.