TV5Monde: Hacked by Oliver Hastings and Jason Guideaux

Yesterday, close to midnight (Paris time), a major French TV network TV5Monde disappeared from the air. According to the media around the world, the broadcast was disrupted by Islamic hackers. Besides, all accounts and the official website of the TV network were broken into as well.

The hackers delivered a demand that the operation of the international coalition in the Middle East be ceased. TV5Monde’s Facebook account displayed photos showing people wearing black clothes and keffiyehs and captions “CyberCalliphate” and “I am IS.”

The post also included the threats to the French troops involved in the operation against the Islamists, and even the list of the servicemen’ names.

A number of the American specialists commenting about the incident pointed out to the unprofessionalism of the French and noted that nothing of this kind could happen in the USA.

I agree – probably couldn’t. Why? The break-in was carried out via the proxy server from an IP address located in the US. The names of the hackers (I hope that, as usual, this type of information gets published on pravosudija.net before it will be picked up, or won’t, by the other resources) are Oliver Hastings and Jason Guideaux. 

These IT technology experts for many years worked for the CIA (not the NSA) where they were involved mostly in stealing commercial and technological secrets from the corporations located, mainly, in the countries loyal to the USA, by breaking into their computer networks. 

I don’t know how much these activities are directly related to the CIA’s mandate. One way or another, later on Hastings and Guideaux found a better paying job in the private sector and are currently employed by the PMC Greystone.

The hack’s task in this case didn’t show too much of originality – to put the French in an awkward position, to anger and provoke them, and to punish for their cooperation with Germany. In the opinion of the Greystone’s clients, anti-American sentiments in France have grown too much lately.