France/Cyberattack on town halls: a phenomenon with far-reaching consequences for local authorities

The commune of Betton, north of Rennes, was the victim of a ransomware-type cyber attack on the night of August 30-31, 2023. Local authorities are the organizations most affected by these attacks, after businesses. A phenomenon that has exploded since 2019, and whose financial impact is far from negligible.

On the night of Wednesday August 30 to Thursday August 31, Betton, a commune of 12,000 inhabitants located a few kilometers north of Rennes, was the victim of a cyber attack "on a massive scale by what is known as ransomware", says the town in a press release. " None of the town's servers were working, everything was encrypted," explains mayor Laurence Besserve. " This is the first time that the town of Betton has suffered an attack of this scale". " Since then, everything possible has been done to restore systems and back up data", adds the mayor.

Ransomware is a malicious software program or virus that blocks a local authority's information system, generally by encrypting its data. The cyber-assailants then demand a ransom to provide a decryption key and restore access.

System backup and data restoration

The town of Betton lodged a complaint with the Gendarmerie on August 31, "enabling a rapid investigation to be launched by the specialized services". The commune, which has also contacted theANSSI (Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d'information), reassures residents that "reliable computer backups enable us to preserve crucial data, neutralize disruptions as far as possible, and restore our IT architecture very shortly. "

"We're still operating, but in degraded mode"

It was the Medusa virus that was detected by the commune's IT service provider. While the $100,000 ransom demanded the day after the attack is known, it is still too early to put a figure on the financial consequences for Betton. The loss of data is limited, the town assures us, and the departments most affected are those that work the most with IT, management, human resources, etc.

"We're continuing to operate, but in degraded mode, and the questions that arise today are first of all to recover everything that has been encrypted, what is in progress and then to know what use will be made of this data."

Laurence Besserve, Mayor of Betton

Local authorities: prime targets

Betton's situation is not isolated. In 2022, local authorities accounted for nearly a quarter of ransomware-related incidents reported to ANSSI. In 2022, computer attacks officially affected some twenty local authorities in France, including regions, départements and towns of over 5,000 inhabitants.

A figure that is certainly far from the reality. According to a Senate report, in 2020, almost 30% of local authorities were victims of a ransomware attack ( Clusif study). And again according to this report, in the same year 2020, the number of cyberattacks against local authorities increased by 50% compared to 2019.

Serious consequences for local authorities

The consequences for a local authority can range from employees being laid off, to the loss of resources linked to the cessation of certain paid services, to the possible payment of ransoms. Then there's the cost of restoring an information system, purchasing terminals, data recovery services or security solutions.

A cost of one million euros for Lille, victim in March 2023

Lille, a city of 236,200 inhabitants, was the victim of a computer attack in March 2023. According to La Gazette des communes, a few months after the event, the bill came to around one million euros for the Hauts-de-France local authority.

For its part, the commune of Mitry-Mory, in Seine-et-Marne, had to incur a bill of 230,000 euros after suffering an attack in July 2020.These attacks "notably disrupt payroll services, the payment of social benefits and the management of civil status", testified Charlotte Blandiot-Faride, the town's mayor, at the Congrès des Maires de France in 2022. "It took us two weeks to get the system working again, and we lost everything in terms of digital archiving," she explained.

Source: france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/