“We were impacted for several weeks,” says an official of ENAC, the national school of aviation. The Toulouse establishment which trains engineers, pilots and air traffic controllers was deprived of IT in the spring when a computer attack was discovered on March 13, a Sunday.

The school’s computer security makes it possible to avoid the worst and an intrusion into all the servers. “Even though our main servers were not infected, everything had to be cleaned up and it took several weeks,” says an official. ENAC did not have to pay the thousands of dollars claimed. This is not the case for all the victims of Hive, a group of computer thugs specializing in ransomware which the legal authorities have estimated have managed to obtain a hundred million dollars defrauded from their approximately 300 victims, mainly companies, including 58 in France according to the French national police.

1500 computer attacks in more than 80 countries

The arrest of the members of this group and the seizure of their equipment, including computer servers discovered in Los Angeles, in the United States, were possible thanks to close collaboration between the FBI, the American federal police and European police, notably German, but also Swedish, Portuguese, Danish, English and French under the aegis of Europol, the European police coordination tool.

According to the communication from the FBI and Europol, Hive has carried out around 1,500 computer attacks since June 2021 in more than 80 countries. “It is important to know that these individuals are not untouchable, appreciates an ENAC official. Afterwards, computer attacks are daily, in companies as well as in individuals. its servers and protect its data.”