French Energy Firm EDF Sentenced for Espionage against Greenpeace

In Paris, a legal proceeding has proved that EDF Energy a national energy organization was responsible for espionage against Greenpeace, a global entity for environmental campaign and so it must compensate for the loss by paying Euro500,000. Eweekeurope.co.uk published this on November 12, 2011.

EDF Energy, which operates 58 nuclear power-plants within France as well as 8 within UK, allegedly came into being during 2006 for monitoring the activities of Yannick Jadot who was chief-of-campaign within the country at Greenpeace in that year.

The company that EDF assigned for doing the surveillance, Kargus Consultants understandably utilized PC-Trojans for hacking into Jadot's PC, filching 1,400 files associated with Greenpeace's campaign propagating shutdown of nuclear plants.

The legal proceeding conducted in Nanterre's court of France sentenced Pascal Durieux the former security chief of EDF with a 3-yr imprisonment along with one suspended, whilst Pierre-Paul Francois, his deputy got a 3-year jail and 30-months suspended sentence.

Thierry Lorho, chief of Kargus got a 3-year jail sentence as well as 2 suspended together with a fine of Euro 4,000, whilst Alain Quiros, his technical specialist as well as ex-secret service official got a 2-yr of suspended sentence.

EDF Energy during trial stated that it didn't know of anybody who'd hack a PC.

Remarking about the judgment by the Nanterre (France) honorary court, John Sauven the Executive Director of Greenpeace UK stated that the trial reached the conclusion that EDF's spying towards discrediting Greenpeace had been wide. Eweekeurope.co.uk published this.

Sauven further stated that EDF currently must provide one complete report of the espionage. Being one among 6 organizations that monopolized UK's electricity supply as well as a prominent Olympics sponsor, EDF was bound to relate everything it did in totality. The time span associated with the sentences declared, revealed the extent of seriousness of the judge's opinion about the French state firm's activities, he described.

Meanwhile, Justin McKeating blogger from Greenpeace remarked that nuclear energy's history was full of stories about nasty tricks, deceit as well as propaganda. EDF's spying was only the most recent instance among many, he wrote. Infosecurity-magazine.com reported this on November 11, 2011.

Related article: France too Falls Prey to Chinese Hackers

» SPAMfighter News - 11/22/2011