Paris:

Several French state bodies have been hit with cyberattacks of “unprecedented intensity”, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s office said Monday while insisting the government had been able to contain the impact.

“Many ministerial services were targeted” from Sunday “using familiar technical means but of unprecedented intensity,” Attal’s office said, without providing further details of the targets.

A security source told AFP that the attacks “are not currently attributable to Russia,” an obvious suspect for many given Paris’ support for Kyiv since the invasion of Ukraine.

The PM’s staff added that a “crisis cell has been activated to deploy countermeasures”, meaning “the impact of these attacks has been reduced for most services and access to state websites restored.”

Specialist services including information security agency ANSSI were “implementing filtering measures until the attacks are over”.

A group calling itself Anonymous Sudan claimed responsibility for what it said was a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on French government network infrastructure.

“We have conducted a massive cyberattack… the damage will be widespread,” the group, which posts with an avatar of a hooded Guy Fawkes mask in front of a desert scene with pyramids, said in a Telegram post.

“A lot of different digital government sectors have been affected, including very important websites, with their respective subdomains.”

Anonymous Sudan is a known outfit that has carried out attacks in the past year against websites in countries including Sweden, Denmark and Israel.

Purportedly based in Sudan, it says it targets what it deems to be an anti-Muslim activity with some signs that it is sympathetic to Russia.

A DDoS attack involves using a computer or network of computers to make a massive number of requests of a target system, overwhelming its ability to respond to legitimate users.

According to US cybersecurity firm Cloudflare, Anonymous Sudan is one of many groups employing DDoS attacks and organisations can protect themselves against its methods.

The latest cyberattack to hit France follows a warning from Attal’s defence adviser last week that the Paris Olympics and European Parliament elections this summer could be “significant targets”.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said last month that protection against “sabotage and cyberattack” by Russia should be stepped up, in an internal note seen by AFP that said his ministry was top of Moscow’s target list.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The emergence of disruptive technology is transforming modern wars and blunting the conventional combat ratio which was a metric to determine the military strength and superiority between states, Army chief General Manoj Pande said at the maiden NDTV Defence Summit, highlighting some of the challenges in modern warfare.

Whether the use of tanks in World War 1 or the development of supersonic fighter jets after World War 2, ‘disruptive technology’ has changed the status quo between factions.

At the summit, General Pande focused on access to such technology by non-state actors, a challenge to the security of the country and said information, cyber, and space warfare have been added to the domain of conflicts. The Army chief said the adversary, with access to such technology, can initiate a low-threshold conflict.

Former Deputy National Security Advisor of the US, Nadia Schadlow said, “The space between war and peace is not an empty one – but a landscape churning with political, economic, and security competitions that require constant attention.”

– ‘Disruptive Technology’ –

The democratization of technology led to the easy acquisition of AI, which can be used to direct targeted attacks. The use of semi-autonomous and autonomous drones, which are powered by AI, in the Russia-Ukraine war and the attacks in the Red Sea have forced states to change their strategy. The US-led alliance in the Gulf is tracking the attacks but is yet to nip it in the bud.

Drones can carry out missions at low cost and have blunted the asymmetry. The US and UK are arming Ukraine with AI-powered drones to carry out precision strikes. Ukraine’s domestic production of drones has risen significantly since the war began in 2022 and the need has created a giant war lab and the country is producing more drones than it could purchase. The UK has increased the funding by 125 million pounds and will supply over 10,000 drones to Ukraine. Houthi rebels, backed by Yemen, have used autonomous platforms to target ships in the Gulf.  

“The use of drones indicates a doctrinal shift and robots are here to play an important role. 10-15% of robots will be there in future forces,” Sameer Joshi, a defence expert said at the summit.

Off-the-shelf disruptive technologies have helped conventionally weaker states use methods to fight a cost-efficient, sustainable fight to stay on the battlefield longer. Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system uses AI to intercept incoming rockets. The 2021 Israeli offensive against Palestinians is called the first ‘AI war’ after Israel used AI tools like ‘Gospel’, ‘Alchemist’, and ‘Depth of Wisodm’ to conduct precision strikes on targets in Gaza.

Cyberattacks on state infrastructure through Malware have posed challenges for several years. The malware attack on the servers of AIIMS Delhi is one such example. The attack was by the Chinese, FIR details that the attack had originated from China. Of 100 servers (40 physical and 60 virtual), five physical servers were successfully infiltrated by the hackers. 

Recently, healthcare providers in the US have struggled to make payments following a ransomware attack, which reportedly originated from Russia. The Colonial Pipeline attack on US oil infrastructure was the biggest in history. Reports claimed that a Russian group named DarkSide was responsible. 

One of the key elements in India’s new criminal laws is the inclusion of “threat to economic security” under the definition of an “act of terror”. 

Concerns over Deep Fakes have been raised even by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Its use in information warfare in generating fake news, especially during a crisis. Information warfare is as essential as firepower in a battle to psychologically dominate the warring faction.

In November last year, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order outlining security measures for AI. The Deputy White House Chief of Staff Bruce Reed said Biden’s interest in AI was partly fuelled after watching Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. 

The Army chief at the summit said, “This is happening amidst legacy challenges of unsettled borders continue,” – An indirect reference to issues with China and Pakistan.

– ‘China’s Three Warfare Strategy’ –

In 2003, the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and the Central Military Commission approved the ‘Three Warfare Strategy’ to guide the People’s Liberation Army’s political and information warfighting. The three elements of the strategy are Public Opinion, Information and Legal Warfare. 

Taking the border conflict in Ladakh as a reference, China used legacy claims like the 1962 reference line, and 1959 claims in Ladakh to justify its aggressive military posture. The dissemination of videos on social media related to the Galwan clash and standoff at other flash points was used to fight information warfare. Directing public opinion among its citizens that it’s our “lost land” and we have “sovereignty over it” were some tactics used. During Donald Trump’s Presidency, the US has raised concerns over China’s “Military-Civil Fusion” to develop technologies that have a dual use. 

Such tactics, use of disruptive technology, and subterfuge have blurred the lines between peace and war and created a Grey zone conflict by the adversary, an issue highlighted by General Pande in his address. 

– ‘Indigenization to Empowerment’ –

The Army Chief stressed the need to develop critical technologies indigenously to create a domestic ecosystem and reduce our reliance on foreign players. “A tri-services project is being undertaken to develop a high-powered computing AI cloud and a roadmap is being created,” General Pande said, adding that we are working on 45 niche technologies and 120 indigenous projects which have implications for the military. 

“Swadeshikaran (Indigenization) se Sashakstikaran (empowerment) is a work in progress to be future ready, he said.

At the Innovation for Defence Excellence (IDEX), Defence Minister Rajnath Singh launched the ADITI scheme to accelerate innovation in critical and strategic deep-tech technologies for future warfare. It provides financial subsidies to private players, creating a public-private partnership model to develop future technology.