Pierluigi Paganini April 09, 2015

Members of the ISIS Cyber Caliphate hacking crew attacked French TV network TV5Monde on Wednesday evening disrupting the broadcast of its TV channels.

The French TV Channel TV5Monde was targeted by a serious cyber attack on Wednesday that compromised broadcasting of transmissions across its medium.the attackers also hijacked the Channel TV5Monde website and social media accounts of the French broadcaster.

TV5Monde is controlled by the French Government, hackers of the Cyber Caliphate shut down broadcasting across its 11 channels for several hours causing the interruption of the transmission.

A group that calls itself the Cyber Caliphate claimed responsibility for the attack that occurred at around 10 p.m. Central European Time. The group sustains to be a wing of the threaded ISIS group, it is not new to this kind of attacks, in the last months the hackers belonging the same team took over the social media account of the US Central Command, the Twitter accounts of Newsweek and the International Business Times.

The hackers had accused French President  Hollande of committing “an unforgivable mistake” by getting involved in “a war that serves no purpose”.

The hackers defaced the TV5Monde website with their logo, the attackers posted on the Facebook page of the broadcaster copies of ID cards allegedly belonging to French soldiers involved in operations against the ISIS. The hackers also wrote:

“The CyberCaliphate continues its cyberjihad against the enemies of Islamic State,” reported the BBC reported.

“This Wednesday our channel, our sites, our transmitters and our social networks were hacked by an Islamist group,” TV5Monde general director Yves Bigot reported in a recorded video message posted on Facebook. “The sites are inaccessible and the television station can no longer transmit its programs for the moment. All hands are on deck. We are doing all we can to get things back to normal rapidly. Thank you for your understanding.”

The French intelligence agency, the ANSSI, and law enforcement are investigating on the cyber attack and are helping the TV5Monde broadcaster to restore services.

Below the declaration of French politicians:

“unacceptable attack on the freedom of information and expression” said Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said: “Everything is being done to find those who carried this out, punish them, re-establish the programs and prevent cyberterrorists threatening freedom of expression in the future.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs –  TV5Monde , ISIS)