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Would somebody more knowledgeable care to explain how they managed this ?
The "unprecedented" cyber-attack on French television channel TV5Monde represents a major "step up" in the Internet warfare being waged by highly specialised jihadist hackers, experts said Thursday.
Since January's three-day Islamist attacks in Paris that killed 17 people, hackers have launched hundreds of assaults on French websites, from denial of service attacks that snarl up web traffic to full-scale hacks.
But taking over a television channel and blocking programming—as happened to TV5Monde—is another matter entirely, experts believe, an "unprecedented" attack, according to the station's boss Yves Bigot.
http://phys.org/news/2015-04-french-tv-hack-cyberjihadism.html
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @09:33AM
One thing that I can't quite fathom is why they chose to 'expose their abilities' using a second- or third-rate TV station.
Wouldn't it have been a lot more effective for them to be able to control the news (you know, they way these clowns claim "The idiot" controls the news)... If it were me, every time an article is published on the barbarities committed by the IS, I would modify the content to be less barbaric, more in favour of me and add content that also lists how many civilians and kids were killed in today's latest drone strike with 'smart ordnance'. I'd be adding all sorts of crazy things in there to sway the public opinion. As long as you're subtle, you'd have a lot more time to 'play' than by doing what they did. Plus, as long as you /do/ remain subtle, almost no-one would know which articles were changed in which way. They'd have to go through *everything*...
All in all, this smells like a false flag to me... It looks like France is beating the drum to start contributing forces to the battle against IS as well and they just need a couple more tricks to get the public on board. (Even though the French SFs are already on the ground)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @12:01PM
One thing that I can't quite fathom is why they chose to 'expose their abilities' using a second- or third-rate TV station.
Perhaps this is the highest ranking media target they could hack? Larger (and more noteworthy targets) may have had better security. Or they've still got a hard-on for France because of the Charlie Hebdo attack and the attack in that deli? Most terrorist get butt-hurt, and seem to take it personally, when someone fights back.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday April 11 2015, @01:39PM
TV5Monde is reasonably popular here in France - not the biggest station by a long way, but not a small outfit either. Why was France targeted? Well, you only have to go back a few months to the murder of Charlie Hebdo's staff - which was meant to intimidate France but actually had the opposite effect. Have we forgotten the 'Je suis Charlie' posters, the huge demonstrations by the French against being silenced by initimidation? Have we forgotten about the 2 sieges that took place which both ended badly for the terrorists, and unfortunately for some French civilians also. And while it is popular to mock the French and call them cowards, many seem to forget that they have had troops in Bosnia, the Gulf Wars, Libya, Afghanistan, Mali and elsewhere, either standing alone or alongside other western nations. They are also prepared to go it alone in the fight against fundamentalist terrorism. IS and other Muslim fundamentalist groups don't need any more reasons to dislike the French.
I also don't think that the French public - and currently I am living amongst them - need any lessons as to why they should stand against terrorism. So I don't believe this is a false flag operation - I think it is what it appears to be.