After cyber threats and hacking fears poured in over the course of the U.S. presidential election, France has increased security as their own election draws near.
The National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (L'Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d'information, ANSSI) is working to provide extra layers of security for the French presidential election taking place in May of this year, after allegations that Russia meddled in the U.S. election have surfaced.
“We’re clearly not up against people who are throwing punches just to see what happens. There’s a real strategy that includes cyber [attacks], interference and leaked information.… These are people whom we’re obviously following closely. Even if we can’t be sure that they’re the same, they’re attackers who regularly come knocking on our ministers’ doors,” ANSSI Director Guillaume Poupard told FRANCE 24 in an interview.
Currently, ANSSI is working on teaching officials how to better protect themselves and identify threats. However, the organization doesn't divulge any information when a breach occurs.
“If it happened in France and stolen information was revealed, I think we would intervene very quickly to explain what could have happened and to warn that the divulged information may not necessarily be accurate, so as to avoid the situation getting out of hand,” Poupard said.
He added, “It wasn’t very natural for American intelligence agencies to communicate to the broader public. It’s not easy for them, they can’t say much without running the risk of revealing how they obtained their information.… In France, ANSSI can speak pretty freely and there’s no conflict of interest because we’re not an intelligence service."
However, it's about much more than just infiltrating a system and changing election results. The real concern is in changing the public's opinion and influencing how they vote—with or without it being changed after the fact.
If an outside party is able to change how a nation thinks through planting fake news stories, leaking emails, and creating a sense of hysteria, that's the real threat.
