The director general of France’s National Agency for Information Systems Security (ANSSI) spoke about this weekend’s cyberattack.
Director General Guillaume Poupard called the attack “extremely violent.”
“The code that was used can really be replicated very fast,” he explained. “If there is a computer that is affected in a network, it is the whole network that will suffer and be paralyzed. So that is what is interesting, from a technical point of view, that’s what’s been effective.”
ANSSI said fewer than 10 French companies were affected. Carmaker Renault had to shut down its factories on May 13 to limit damage.
The “ransomware” cyberattack hit 200,000 victims in 150 different countries. The European Commission said its agencies were not affected by the cyberattack.
The source of the attack is still unknown.