Hackers have attacked 19,000 French websites in the aftermath of the raid on the office of Charlie Hebdo, according to France's cyberdefense chief.
The attacks were carried out by "more or less structured" groups, including some well-known Islamic hacking groups, Adm. Arnaud Coustilliere, head of the French Army's cybersecurity department, told reporters on Thursday.
Coustilliere defined them as "defacement," referring to common attacks in which hackers take control of a site and replace its content.
"That's never been seen before. It's the first time that a country has been faced with such a large wave," he said.
Some of the targets included military regiment websites and pizza shops, he said.
After the attack on Charlie Hebdo, which left 12 dead, some Islamist hacking groups, such as FallaGa Team, AnonGhost or the United Islamic Cyber Force, have been engaged in various actions of cybervandalism, defacing websites to display their propaganda messages.
#OpFrance#CharlieHebdo #HellForHebdohttp://t.co/DESERAk0tt pic.twitter.com/ngOqgW29PD— United Islamic Cyber (@uicforce) January 12, 2015
At the same time, hackers loosely affiliated with Anonymous have also launched their own campaign dubbed "OpCharlieHebdo," targeting jihadist websites.
On Saturday, the group took down a well-known French jihadist website.
#TangoDown : http://t.co/rHJrjTZ8mAExpect us. #JeSuisCharlie #OpCharlieHebdo #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/RK7gBWr8QS— OpCharlieHebdo (@OpCharlieHebdo) January 10, 2015
None of these attacks are particularly sophisticated. As experts told Mashable on Tuesday, the hackers go after low-hanging fruit -- websites that have faulty settings, leaving them vulnerable to easy attacks.
"They hack anything they find handy to do propaganda," independent security researcher Andrea Stroppa said.
The French government did not respond to Mashable's request for comment.
Some information in this report was provided by The Associated Press.