Television network’s channels and website hacked by group claiming ISIL ties
PARIS — Hackers claiming allegiance to ISIL seized control of a global French television network, simultaneously blacking out 11 channels and taking over the network’s website and social media accounts. The attack appeared to be an unprecedented step in the extremist group’s information warfare tactics.
The hackers briefly cut transmission of 11 channels belonging to TV5 Monde and took over its websites and social media accounts starting Wednesday night. The channel’s director, Yves Bigot, said the attack was continuing Thursday. He told RTL radio that the network has restored its signal but can only broadcast recorded programs.
The Islamic extremist group has claimed complex hackings before, but experts and a French official said the ability to black out a global television network represented a new level of sophistication for the group. The Paris prosecutor’s office said Thursday it has opened a terrorism investigation into the attack.
Bigot said he was shaken when he saw the black screen across the network’s broadcasts “and when we discovered the sense of the message appearing on our social media and our websites, it both allowed us to understand what was happening and obviously worried us.”
The message on the TV5 Monde website read in part “I am IS” with a banner by a group that called itself Cybercaliphate. It was replaced later Thursday by a simple message saying that it was undergoing maintenance.
Hackers claiming to work on behalf of ISIL have seized control of the Twitter accounts of other media, such as Newsweek, and in January they hacked into the Twitter page and YouTube site of the U.S. military’s Central Command.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls, on his Twitter account, called the attack “an unacceptable insult to freedom of information and expression,” and French government ministers visited the channel’s Paris headquarters Thursday.
TV5 Monde, which was founded by the French government in 1984 and calls itself the “worldwide French cultural channel,” broadcasts news and other programs produced in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada. Its Facebook page says its signal reaches more than 257 million homes in over 200 countries and territories.