11th e-Crime & Cybersecurity France Congress
22nd March 2022, Paris
Under attack: how France is fighting back against cybercrime
Will plans to increase budgets and launch a new cyber centre help the private sector defend itself?
Cyber-attacks in France increased fourfold in 2020 and have continued in 2021. As Armed Forces minister Florence Parly, says: "If there is indeed a space where malevolence never sleeps, not even with one eye, a space where each of us can become the target, the vector, or even the amplifier of its threat, it is indeed cyber-space."
As if to emphasise those words, in the middle of last year, French President Emmanuel Macron changed his phone and phone number in light of allegations that Pegasus spyware might have targeted him, triggering an emergency meeting on cybersecurity at the Élysée Palace.
This followed a series of attacks on French hospitals which prompted Macron to call them “a crisis within a crisis” and to commit €1 billion to strengthen the cyber-security of sensitive systems. He also announced the creation of a new cyber defence centre and later added a commitment to spend an additional €500 million on security, including cybersecurity.
Attacks have continued to hit key French sites and businesses, with breaches at the French government’s ‘France-Visas’ website, which contains the personal data of visa applicants hoping to visit or emigrate to France, and also the Asian businesses of French insurer AXA.
Attackers have ranged from “mafia groups” operating in eastern Europe, to Russian and Chinese-linked threat actors.
Can government, solution providers and private companies collaborate to solve this problem?
The government has adopted both an offensive and defensive stance and has also invested heavily in collaboration. Later this year, a new cybersecurity centre in Paris’s financial district comes online. Owned by 60 different entities operating in cybersecurity, it will host 1,500 researchers and people working for private companies and the government.
Part of the centre’s goal is to triple the annual sales of French cybersecurity companies to €€25 billion in 2025 from €7.3 billion in 2019, and double the number of jobs in the sector by 2025. But it is also designed to deliver advanced protection for both public and private sectors.
In the meantime though, what can CISOs do about the burgeoning threatscape?
The e-Crime & Cybersecurity France Congress will look at how we all need a new kind of security. Join our real-life case studies and in-depth technical sessions from the security and privacy teams at some of the world’s most admired brands.