Tonight on Arte: The Cybercrime Explosion at the Heart of a Scary Documentary

“Meat? It’s someone who uses one hand or two fingers to type on a keyboard, who sets their name as a password. Or their dog’s name. Or their birthday. Meat is someone who is digitally illiterate, who by definition is destined to be eaten by cybercriminals.”

These are the words of Rabbi de Bois, a repentant 28-year-old hacker who claims both his Jewishness and admiration for the legendary hero of Sherwood Forest. Crossing the line after years of selling stolen data on the Darknet, he expresses himself with true cynicism in a chilling documentary airing tonight on Arte at 10:25, Hackers – A Raped Intimacy.

We knew the devastation that cyber-attacks against states and their sometimes vital interests could cause, as happened in 2007 during the first ever cyber war that pitted Moscow’s phantom armies against “Estonian” IT infrastructure; One of the first countries in the world to have an army to protect its cyberspace.

In Hackers – privacy is breached, the overview is dizzying: this cybercrime is responsible, according to American experts, for the theft of 6,000 billion dollars a year. read it right In 2022, cyber attacks will increase by 26% in Europe and 38% globally. In Switzerland, a wealthy country, this cybercrime represents no less than 40% of crimes.

Both highly profitable and low-risk for those involved, cybercrime is exploding. Individuals, companies, administrations, no one escapes it. In Nyon, Switzerland, Christian and his wife lost 10,000 Swiss francs in a bogus tech support scam.

Other hackers, operating in organized groups, support ransomware attacks, malicious software that allows them to lock down computer systems and then demand a ransom to restore access.

The town of Rolle, in Switzerland and chosen at random, knows something about it. In August 2021, it fell victim to a ransomware attack claimed by a group calling itself Vice-societywho introduces his victims as “partners” without laughing.

If the ransom demand is refused, the city faces the wrath of a criminal organization that even has the luxury of having “quality assurance” officers in its ranks. their goals? Make sure that the inoculated computer virus will have little or no flaws…

Vice Society has literally looted from top to bottom all possible and imaginable information from the residents of this city in order to dump it on the dark web. More than 5000 files. Everything, absolutely everything: names, copies of credit cards, signature records, medical records, social security numbers, addresses, property values ​​of the owners… even the notebooks of local schoolchildren.

And when the documentary filmmakers manage to contact this group of hackers and ask them if they have any messages to convey to the mayor of Rolls, they reply: “You should have paid. We could have helped and done everything. See you next time! Hopefully you’ll be smarter.”

Regret perhaps? None, of course. “We don’t have a bad conscience. Why? Because we don’t leave hospitals, schools or universities safe.” The fine art of victim-blaming these devastating cyberattacks.

Hackers – Breached Privacy aired tonight on Arte at 10.25pm. Also available on arte.tv until November 19, 2023.