Four thousand soldiers to defend cyberspace

In our digi­tal era, natio­nal defence and the mili­ta­ry also ope­rate in cybers­pace to fight off the increa­sing num­bers of attacks in this new battlefield.

The digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of all acti­vi­ties goes hand in hand with an increase in attack sur­face with new vul­ne­ra­bi­li­ties for citi­zens, com­pa­nies and ins­ti­tu­tions, but also for the defence and mili­ta­ry sec­tors. In the same way that cri­mi­nals have inves­ted in cybers­pace, extre­mist groups, ter­ro­rist orga­ni­sa­tions or back rooms acting on the behalf of forei­gn states, take advan­tage of this vir­tual space without bor­ders in which they can act rapid­ly and per­ma­nent­ly cover their tracks.

In Octo­ber 2019, Flo­rence Par­ly, the French Minis­ter for the Armed Forces, decla­red that France had alrea­dy been tar­ge­ted over 800 times by cybe­rat­tacks in only 9 months*. The objec­tives of these attacks were the same than those before the digi­tal age : espio­nage, des­ta­bi­li­sa­tion, sabo­tage, mani­pu­la­tion, etc. The atta­ckers, who adap­ted to the avai­lable tech­no­lo­gi­cal means, are groups of hackers see­king data to sell, back doors onto the pay­roll or at the ser­vice of forei­gn states.

This context led the Minis­try of the Armed Forces to build an ope­ra­tio­nal com­mand dedi­ca­ted to cyber defence : “Com­Cy­ber”. Cybers­pace is now a new field of ope­ra­tion and even though cyber defence does not have an army per se, it acts in the same capa­ci­ty as the Ground, Naval, Air and Space armed forces.

Crea­ted in May 2017, Com­Cy­ber is in charge of mili­ta­ry cyber defence. The 2019–2025 mili­ta­ry pro­gram­ming law allo­ca­ted a bud­get of 1.6 bil­lion euros and the recruit­ment of 1100 cyber-sol­diers to the com­mand. When asked to explain his role, the Gene­ral Didier Tis­seyre, replied without hesi­ta­tion, “I am paid to be para­noid. Our mis­sion is to fend off any mili­ta­ry attack against our nation State”.

The tone is set. “Today in cybers­pace, we are not in a time of war or peace, but in a state of per­ma­nent cri­sis!”, he adds. The mis­sions of Com­Cy­ber cover two main areas in the fight against cyber­crime : defence (LID, Lutte infor­ma­tique Défen­sive) and offence (LIO, Lutte infor­ma­tique Offen­sive). Figh­ting against jiha­dists, for example, now requires ground and air forces, as well as sol­diers in cyberspace.

The pur­pose of Com­Cy­ber is not only to defend the infor­ma­tion sys­tems of all the enti­ties of the Minis­try of the Armed Forces against attacks, but also to defend embed­ded com­pu­ter sys­tems used in ope­ra­tions. These are found in wea­pons, indus­trial machi­ne­ry, ener­gy sup­ply equip­ment, etc. This equip­ment is as much if not more like­ly to be atta­cked through digi­tal media, as shown by the expe­rience of the U.S. Depart­ment of Defense. For seve­ral years, it has orga­ni­sed open chal­lenges during which “white hats”, or “ethi­cal” hackers, are invi­ted to test the resi­lience of secu­ri­ty sys­tems and seek vul­ne­ra­bi­li­ties. In 2019, it only took 48 hours for cle­ver hackers to take control of a F‑15 Eagle figh­ter air­craft. These things do not hap­pen only in movies !

The French Minis­try of Armed Forces also per­forms these secu­ri­ty flaw hunts cal­led “bug boun­ty” pro­grams. With one dif­fe­rence : ethi­cal hackers are recrui­ted among the cyber-defence reser­vists and the civi­lian and mili­ta­ry per­son­nel of the Minis­try of Armed Forces.

New chal­lenges call for new types of orga­ni­sa­tion and methods. The minis­try now includes 3000 cyber-sol­diers (4000 are plan­ned for 2025) and one-third of these is direct­ly atta­ched to Com­Cy­ber. The other two-thirds are divi­ded in dif­ferent ser­vices of the Minis­try of the Armed Forces, or pos­ted in spe­cia­li­sed ser­vices such as the Natio­nal Agen­cy for the Secu­ri­ty of Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems (ANSSI, Agence natio­nale de la sécu­ri­té des sys­tèmes d’in­for­ma­tion).

And, contra­ry to what one may think, they are not all coding experts. “It is true that we need digi­tal spe­cia­lists, but we also need experts in geo­po­li­tics, social engi­nee­ring, social net­works, mili­ta­ry ope­ra­tions, etc.”, indi­cates Didier Tisseyre.

*Since this inter­view, in a recent stu­dy Neus­tar esti­mate that the num­ber of cybe­rat­tacks during the first 6 months of 2020 was 151% higher than the figures for the same per­iod of the pre­vious year. They conclude the­re­fore that the Covid cri­sis has had an impact on cybersecurity.