19,000 French Websites Hit By ‘Unprecedented’ DoS Attacks After Charlie Hebdo Shooting

In the wake of the terrorist attack against Charlie Hebdo that left 20 people dead last week, more than 19,000 French websites have been targeted by pro-Isis hackers.

Arnaud Coustilliere, the head of cyberdefence for France’s military, confirmed that this is the first time that any country has ever been hit by “such a large wave” of cyberattacks.

The surge is mostly made up of relatively minor denial-of-service attacks. Sky News has also reported that some sites were hacked to show a message reading “The Islamic State Stay Inchallah. Free Palestine. Death To France. Death To Charlie.”

Je suis Charlie

As yet the attacks appear to have no organisation, with hackers targeting sites indiscriminately from military regiments to pizza shops.

Coustilliere confirmed that no attack has appeared to have caused serious damage, though the military has begun round-the-clock surveillance to monitor the situation.

Today, visitors to Le Parisien, L’Express, 20 Minutes, France Inter, Mediapart, and Marianee have all been met with error messages when trying to look at stories.

While the source of the problem is not yet known, there is speculation that it’s the next step in this cyber guerrilla warfare.

Meanwhile, hacktivist group anonymous has declared war against “enemies of the freedom of expression,” vowing to attack known terrorist websites and social media accounts in revenge of the Charlie Hebdo journalists.

Charlie Hebdo itself published its first issue after the shooting at its office. The cover features an image of the Prophet Mohamed, a tear falling from his eye, holding up a “Je Suis Charlie” sign with accompanying text reading “tout est pardonne” (all is forgiven).

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