France blames Russian military intelligence for years of cyberattacks on local entities therecord.media/france-bl…

France has accused a hacker group controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU) of orchestrating a series of cyberattacks against French institutions over several years. In a rare public attribution, the French foreign ministry said on Tuesday it “condemns in the strongest possible terms” the actions of the GRU-linked threat actor known as APT28.

According to French officials, APT28 — also known as Fancy Bear or BlueDelta, and long believed to be an arm of the GRU’s Unit 26165 —has been behind cyber operations affecting around ten French entities since 2021. The targets included public services, private companies and a sports organization involved in Olympic preparations.

The group reportedly relies on low-cost, easily accessible infrastructure like rented servers and VPNs to evade detection and complicate attribution, according to a report by France’s state cybersecurity agency (ANSSI).