Orange launches “the Waze of cybersecurity”

“We imagine 8 to 10 times more potential attacks during the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games than during those in Tokyo.” Gérard Vallet is the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes director of Orange Cyberdéfense, the operator’s subsidiary dedicated to cybersecurity.

Overall, today, all news – we see this with the legislative elections – is accompanied by a cyber risk. Legislative elections are no exception. In a note dated June 25, the Minister of the Interior alerts the prefects on “several security risks” concerning the vote. He cites in particular “the terrorist threat” et “targeted destabilization actions” in connection with “the international context”targeting Russia in particular.

8 to 10 times more cyberattacks expected during the Paris Olympics

In 2023, 2 out of 3 French people said they received suspicious messages every week ⁽¹⁾ and 280,000 requests for assistance for digital fraud were recorded over a year on the government’s cybercrime victim assistance platform, with, this year’s phenomenon, +78% of telephone attacks by fake bank advisors.

Faced with the exponential growth and automation of cyberattacks, Orange has set up a platform, accessible to all, “regardless of its operator”on which any particular, will be able to check, free of charge, by a simple copy/paste, the legitimacy of a site, a link, an email or an SMS which seems suspicious. “As a community platform, this portal should be seen as the ‘Waze of cybersecurity'”underlines Gérald Vallet.

Orange’s cybersecure site is accessible here.

Second level of response, for Orange or Sosh customers: a “Cybersecure pack” at 7 euros per month without commitment, for ten devices in each home (computers, mobiles, tablets, etc.)

Read also:
– “The digital transition is an El Dorado for all evildoers”
– In Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes the cyber threat level remains high

The full transcript of the interview with Gérald Vallet

Hello everyone and welcome to this new 6-minute meeting. Today we are welcoming Gérald Vallet, hello!

Bonjour !

Gérald Vallet, you are the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regional director of Orange CyberDéfense, the Orange subsidiary that supports companies in the face of increasing cyberattacks. For a few days now, Orange has been offering a fairly unique protection against online and telephone fraud, accessible to everyone, regardless of their operator, which allows you to check the legitimacy of links, text messages and sites for free. Why did you launch this new offer, what was your starting point?

The observation, obviously, today is that digital usage – at least in our daily lives – is increasing. We can take as an illustration the use of digital platforms to declare taxes, to carry out banking transactions, etc.

Almost everything goes online today.

Exactly, and obviously linked to that, two observations: the first is that individuals, in the vast majority, and we obviously have a digital divide, in any case a divide of different populations using the use digital, the fact that we obviously have a knowledge of the IT tool which is not yet ultimately significant enough. Secondly, obviously, that the rise of cybercrime is increasing very sharply.

I was looking at figures so these are figures: 2 out of 3 French people say they receive suspicious messages every week, 280,000 requests for assistance for digital fraud recorded over a year, more than 78% of telephone attacks to fake bank advisors in 2023, that’s cyberlemalévance.gouv.fr. So how does your platform actually work?

The objective was really to provide a level of response and support ultimately to the individual and to individuals that did not really exist. And so, in fact, we provide two levels of response which complement each other. The first is for any person, whether they are an Orange customer or not: it is a generally participatory portal which will ultimately allow users to copy a link that they receive by SMS or by email generally which allow in any case to verify its legitimacy.

We copy and paste a suspicious link on this platform in fact.

Exactly, and behind that, in fact, we worked on internal artificial intelligence which obviously allows us to ultimately accelerate this study in any case. And then behind it, our Orange CyberDéfense experts are also there to provide a human response in the event of a link that is not known or deserves special attention. So this is the first level of response, really this participatory portal.

This means that ultimately on this community participatory portal we will finally have a sort of database.

Exactly.

And today, even if you don’t reveal all your figures, but roughly speaking, how many…how many sites and links does your database consist of?

So, today, we actually store millions of pieces of information per day, whether in the business sector and tomorrow in the individual sector. So there you have it and therefore we must see this portal as the Waze of cybersecurity, if I had to summarize a community platform like this. And so, the more information we declare overall on this site, the more we will expand, and therefore inevitably, the more we will secure each other. So that was the first level of response. And the second is for Orange or Sosh customers. It is a “cybersecure pack”, generally which will be 7 euros per month without commitment, but 7 euros per month for 10 terminals. So we can clearly see the family side of this offer which will allow it to be linked to this portal so the solution will ultimately feed itself in any case from this participatory portal. And at the same time we will work directly to block URLs that are malicious in advance to obviously avoid there being a click which is in any case unfortunate.

The fact that Orange has released this offer now, is that also linked to the Olympic Games? We imagine that with the Olympic Games, cyberattacks will explode.

So, generally speaking, in any case, any news – we have just seen with the elections – in any case any news globally is accompanied by a cyber subject today. So that is a fact that is really proven, we saw it during the pandemic. Finally, here we have a lot of illustrations that allow us to demonstrate it in any case. Indeed, during the Olympic Games, we saw it in Tokyo, we imagine in any case 8 to 10 times more potential attacks globally during the Paris Olympics. So, inevitably, obviously, this subject, in any case, is timely and this societal role, in any case, that we want to bring to our citizens obviously also fits right into this news.

You were talking about your process that you created Orange CyberDefense with artificial intelligence. Are the attack techniques evolving? Are they becoming more sophisticated? Are they more sophisticated, are we going to do it like that with the appearance of artificial intelligence?

Yes, completely. We can clearly see the main threat, and what we obviously want to respond to, in any case, for our fellow citizens, is the main threat which is phishing: it is receiving an email or a text message generally which aims behind to click on a link, which is obviously fraudulent, and behind, the objective is to recover information. And so, obviously, that our platform and that phishing emails today use and the groups of attackers use artificial intelligence to sophisticate their attacks. Today, we can clearly see that in fact there are no more spelling mistakes, the emails are extremely well designed and therefore, inevitably, it obviously complicates, all the same, the identification of something which can be malicious. So, obviously, AI is used by attack groups in an exponential way, which is why also in the way of responding to it, AI is also a good way of course to be able to defend in any case in a parallel way, in quotes, in relation to the subject.

Thank you Gérald Vallet for coming to explain to us