A user has disseminated online what he claims to be confidential documents stolen from the satirical weekly, while the latter is the target of disparaging messages referring to his piracy.
by Damien Leloup and Florian Reynaud
Who hides behind Charlie Hebdo’s hacking? After the computer attack which targeted the weekly on Wednesday, January 4, many gray areas remain. An investigation was opened on Thursday of chiefs of access and fraudulent maintenance in an automated data processing system. According to the observations of the world, files stolen from the newspaper have been put online, confirming information from the France-Presse agency (AFP) and Europe 1 . The unidentified pirate claimed the operation on at least two discussion forums. He claims to have obtained access to numerous internal and confidential documents, as well as to data of more than 200,000 “customers” of the weekly.
MO12345lemonde was able to verify, with several victims of this leak, the veracity of a distributed sample. This table essentially contains the names, first names, addresses, emails and sometimes telephone numbers of people with at least, made a purchase on the Charlie Hebdo store. If it was not possible to precisely date the collection of data, one of the victims contacted explains that he was subscribed in mid-December.
The profile of the pirate detonates. On a discussion forum, he claims to be ready to sell all of his loot for 20 bitcoins, or around $ 320,000. An abnormally high price for the sale of customer files to the black market. Above all, it links accounts to the same name created in recent days on at least four pirate forums, but having no activity, or the simple claim of the hacking of Charlie Hebdo. The email address he communicates to potential buyers also refers to a domain name bought at the start of the year, and hosted on a server in Malaysia.
At least two French commercial sites would also have been recently disfigured – that is to say that one of their pages has been temporarily modified – to reveal the claim of the computer attack against the satirical newspaper. The pirate recently claimed recent similar acts on many small French companies. Contacted, several of these companies did not immediately respond to the requests of the world.
But it is above all a strange YouTube video that sows doubts about the motivations of this hacking. This blurring extract, entitled “The Holy Spirits have removed the face mask of” Charlie Hebdo “, affirms that the sales of the newspaper collapse, shows extracts from documents, and concludes on a misty” Charlie is not not ours “. The video, which refers to the name used by the pirate, Holy Souls (literally translates “Saintes”), suggests that the attack goes beyond the villainous motif, seeking to denigrate the newspaper.
You have 50.37% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.