By Sean Rayment
A leading French defence company is investigating a potential cyberattack after hackers claimed to have obtained sensitive data relating to the country’s nuclear submarines.
Naval Group, the state-owned shipbuilder that traces its origins back almost 400 years to the reign of Louis XIII, said it had “immediately launched technical investigations” after cybercriminals threatened to publish files on the dark web.
The company builds and maintains key vessels for the French Navy, including aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered submarines. These include France’s Barracuda fleet of nuclear missile-armed submarines.
In a post on a dark web forum, the hackers claimed to have uncovered “top-secret classified” data on “submarines and frigates”.
They gave the company 72 hours to respond to the leak, with the initial documents allegedly including source code for submarine weapon systems.
So far, the attackers have published around 30 gigabytes of data, although they claim to possess far more information yet to be disclosed.
Naval Group has responded by insisting it had found “no intrusion into our IT environments”, describing the incident as a “reputational attack”.
A spokesperson said: “Naval Group has noticed being the target of a reputational attack with the claim of a cyber-malice act. We immediately launched technical investigations.
“All teams and resources are currently mobilised to analyse and verify the authenticity, origin and ownership of the data as quickly as possible.
“At this stage, no intrusion into our IT environments has been detected and there has been no impact on our activities.”
The alleged breach comes amid a wave of cyberattacks against companies and governments.
Last week, Microsoft admitted to a major flaw in its SharePoint document-sharing system, believed to have been exploited by hackers linked to China.
Among the organisations targeted was the US National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains America’s nuclear arsenal, although no sensitive files were reported to have been taken.
Naval Group is France’s largest shipbuilder, employing more than 15,000 people and generating revenues of over €4.4bn. The French government owns almost two-thirds of the business, with the remainder held by Thales, the French defence giant.
