Paris 2024 is preparing to face an unprecedented cybersecurity challenge, with organizers expecting enormous pressure on the Olympic Games.
Organized crime, activists and states will be the main threats during the Olympics, from July 26th to August 11th, and the Paralympics, from August 28th to September 8th.
Paris 2024, which has been working together with the French national information security agency (Anssi) and cybersecurity companies Cisco and Eviden, is looking to limit the impact of cyberattacks.
“We cannot prevent all attacks, there will be no Games without attacks, but we have to limit their impacts on the Olympic Games,” Vincent Strubel, director general of ANSSI, told reporters. “There are 500 venues, competition facilities and local collectives, and we test them all.”
“We cannot prevent all attacks, there will be no Games without attacks, but we have to limit their impacts on the Olympic Games,” said Vincent Strubel, general director of Anssi- REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq/Rights reserved
Strubel is confident that Paris 2024, which will operate from a cybersecurity operations center in a location that is being kept secret, will be ready.
“The Games are facing an unprecedented level of threat, but we’ve also done an unprecedented amount of preparation work, so I think we’re one step ahead of the attackers,” he said.
To ensure they are in the game, Paris 2024 has been paying “ethical hackers” to test their systems and using artificial intelligence to help them triage threats.
“AI helps us make the difference between a nuisance and a catastrophe,” said Franz Regul, managing director of IT at Paris 2024. “We expect the number of cybersecurity events to be multiplied by 10 compared to Tokyo [em 2021]. “In terms of cybersecurity, four years is the equivalent of a century,” explained Eric Greffier, director of partnerships at Cisco.
In 2018, a computer virus dubbed “Olympic Destroyer” was used in an attack on the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Games.
Although Moscow has denied any involvement, the US Justice Department said in 2020 that it had indicted six Russian intelligence agency hackers for a four-year wave of cyberattacks that included attacks against the Pyeongchang Games.
“We would like to have an opponent, but we are investigating everything and everyone. Naming possible attackers is not our role, it is the role of the State,” said Strubel.
Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron said he had no doubt that Russia would maliciously target the Paris Olympics.
The Games will be held against a complex global backdrop, including Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s conflict with Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
* Reproduction of this content is prohibited.
