Yesterday, Free employees of call centers, Proxi and Free network were called to strike “ after the announcement last week of the end of teleworking », Explains France 3. Our colleagues collected the message from several union delegates. There are also testimonials and photos on social networks.
End of teleworking “for cybersecurity reasons”
« Management took away teleworking from us apparently for cybersecurity reasons, even though it was still a social asset that brought a lot of comfort to employees in their private and professional lives. », explains Mohamed Ennourine (CFTC).
« IThey are taking away all the advantages little by little », adds Nadia Boudjadit (Certicall). She also denounces “ unattainable goals » from management. For the trade unionist, all this “ is a form of pressure, blackmail » on employees so that they leave « the ship on their own ».
A few days earlier, on of the After.
“Inability of the group to set up secure VPNs”
The union returns to drastic reductions in staff numbers, stagnation of wages and pressure on productivity. But last week it was “ one blow too many » : « This Thursday, we witnessed a huge joke, due to cybersecurity, and the group's inability to set up secure VPNs, they stopped teleworking for all employees of call centers, proxies and Free network ».
A shame for the CGT when the group is a “ Internet and mobile provider, fifth in Europe, that's rather funny… yellow “. When it published its results at the end of August, Iliad claimed the position of fifth European operator in mobile (behind Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Telefónica and the French number one Orange) and in fixed broadband.
Teleworking and Free Proxi: one step forward, another step back?
With France Bleu, Annabel Ros (CGT) wonders “ why should employees pay the price for a security breach that is the responsibility of management? “. It would in fact be a way to reduce the workforce, according to our colleagues. Since the Covid pandemic, Free had moved to teleworking, but the cards were reshuffled two years ago with the launch of Free Proxi, teams installed in apartments or houses.
« We were told ten days ago that all forms of teleworking would be stopped. All remote access is cut as of this morning », Christophe Risal (CGT) explained yesterday to La Tribune.
An internal accomplice would have given his OpenVPN credentials
What is the connection between secure VPNs (no, this is not an advertisement for VPNs, rest assured), cybersecurity issues and the end of teleworking?
At the end of October, when Free communicated about the leak of its customers' personal data. The ISP explained, without going into details, that the cyberattack targeted “a management tool”, with the consequence “ unauthorized access to part of personal data “. Rebelote a few days later, with bonus IBANs in the wild for mobile customers.
According to SaaX sur of an agent (accomplice) who gave his identifiers [OpenVPN] to the cybercriminal “. After ” investigations and cross-checking”, the cybersecurity expert adds that “after sharing Agent 0's account, several other Free agents received calls from the cybercriminal and his accomplices pretending to be the IT department… Unfortunately, some were fooled and in turn gave their identifiers… “. And, still according to SaaX, “ since the cyberattack, no more teleworking to access data ».
This lead has not yet been confirmed. As a reminder, the CNIL is investigating the Free leak and has already announced a sad (provisional) assessment of the number of complaints: “ more than 2,000 at this point. This is the record for a series of complaints ».
