Cybersecurity Risks at Global Events: Why is the Olympics a Target

By Sandeep Bhambure, Vice President and Managing Director at Veeam Software, India & SAARC and Gil Vega, CISO, Veeam Software

​Key Takeaways:

• AI is enabling rapid advances in Social Engineering

• Big world events = big cyber threats

• Summer Olympics in Paris expected to be a target of cybercriminals

• We should all prepare to receive scams, where the Olympics are used as a lure

From the IPLs to the World Cup and now the Olympics, sports have been the source of enthusiasm and national pride in India. The excitement surrounding this year’s World Cup victory shows just how passionate India is about sporting events, and as we look forward to the 2024 Paris Olympics, it’s apparent how this event unifies us together as a nation. 

The growing fervor for the Olympics this year stems from India’s impressive achievement at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics where Indian athletes bagged 7 medals including one gold. It is marveling at the sporting excellence on display from apparently superhuman competitors, who make you question whether you should be getting up and moving more. However, amid all these thoughts, what concerns us as professionals in the cybersecurity space is just how massive the task is for the cybersecurity teams responsible for the safety of these games. To put these thoughts in context, the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics, experienced 450 million attempted attacks, and it’s predicted that the Paris Olympics will see ten times the number of attacks as Tokyo, potentially making it the most attacked games ever.

A global event as big as the Olympics, naturally becomes a prime target for sophisticated cyber-attacks. This comes from the unfortunate reality of any major world event in the digital age, where the convergence of international attention, extensive digital infrastructure makes these big scale events, an enticing prospect for cyber criminals. 

The Olympics as a target​

There might be questions around why the Olympics are such a target There are several reasons. Firstly, the eyes of the world are on the event, making it a prime target for bad guys, including activists, state actors, and cybercriminals. Another reason is the sheer scale of the IT infrastructure that must be in place to run an event like this and the relatively short time that the organizers had to put it all in place. Considering that there are anticipated to be more than 10,000 participants, millions of visitors, and billions of viewers across the globe, the potential for an Olympic cyber disaster is considerable. We saw a successful attack disrupt the opening ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. The attack affected their data centers and shut off the Wi-Fi in the stadium and every gate system in every Olympic building. It also shut down the digital ticketing function and broke the official Olympics app. Running the events without these essential functions would be problematic. The IT team worked through the night and was able to recover operations in time before the first event, but it was a close call. 

The bright side is that the team responsible for the Paris Olympics has taken the threat incredibly seriously. Working closely with the French Agency for National Security (ANSSI), they’ve carried out a wide-ranging program to protect the games, including extensive system hardening, war gaming, pen testing, and a bug bounty program to reward ethical hackers who find vulnerabilities in their systems. The security operations center for the games will also operate from a top-secret location.

The Olympics as a lure

The games themselves are likely not just to be a target but also a lure in upcoming phishing and fraud attempts. If there is one thing we know, cybercriminals capitalize on world events in their schemes. It won’t be too easy to identify too-good-to-be-true offers, prizes, or promises that use the Olympics as a lure. Considering that the games have taken a step into the digital frontier recently, it is crucial to be mindful and not trust every Olympic app that claim to be genuine. It is important that we must keep educating ourselves and thoroughly check any platform before downloading or even engaging with it. 

With excitement surrounding this global phenomenon, it’s just as fundamental to develop a strong cybersecurity strategy to protect the integrity of the games, securing sensitive information, and maintaining the trust of athletes, fans, and organizers alike. Hopefully, with all the cyber threats in the open, we can turn our attention to the athleticism on the fields, in the water, and on the courts. Which country are you rooting for in this year’s games?​

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