France will use cyberweapons to respond and attack

France will use cyberweapons, in addition to traditional weapons, to respond and attack, Defence Secretary Florence Parly stated at the International Cybersecurity Forum FIC2019, held in Lille. She declared that ‘Cyberwar has begun’. Parly called on European allies to co-operate in combating cyber-threats, and particularly, in protecting the defence industry’s supply chain. In this regard, she asked for greater engagement from small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to further develop the French (and EU) cyber-defence, and announced a bug bounty partnership between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and startups, in which ethical hackers will conduct research for the MoD to look for internal vulnerabilities.