The French submarine construction giant was hacked — hackers leaked the code of combat systems!

 The French shipbuilding corporation Naval Group, one of the key players in the development of nuclear submarines for the French Navy and other countries, was at the center of a large-scale cyberattack. The company is currently conducting an investigation after hackers claimed to have gained access to classified data, including the source code of weapons systems of submarines.

The attack was carried out by a group called Cyber Partisans, which is not the first time it has been published with high-profile leaks. This time, they claim to have extracted hundreds of gigabytes of confidential information, from technical drawings to software controlling weapons aboard submarines. According to them, among the leaked data there are even fragments of the code responsible for aiming torpedoes and fire control systems.

Naval Group is not just a private company. It builds strategic nuclear submarines with nuclear weapons (SSBN) and multi-purpose submarines (SSN), which are the cornerstone of the naval component of France's nuclear deterrence. Accordingly, the leakage of such data is not just a blow to reputation, but a potential threat to national security.

The company itself has not yet confirmed or denied the scale of the leak, but said it had detected "suspicious activity" in its IT infrastructure and was already working with government services, including France's National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI), to assess the damage and eliminate the consequences.

What is the danger of such a leak? Even if hackers have not gained access to the warheads themselves, knowledge of the software architecture allows potential adversaries to find vulnerabilities, simulate attacks, or even create simulation systems to train counteraction. It is especially alarming that some of the Naval Group's projects are international, such as the Australian submarine program, which has already experienced a high—profile scandal in the past.

This incident once again raises the question: how secure are the defense contractors whose technologies underpin national defense? And if hackers were able to get in here, who's next?