The opening rite of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will take place on July 26 and athletes from more than two hundred countries will participate. Russian athletes will be among the 10,000 participants in the events, but the war in Ukraine prevents them from officially representing Russia. Cybersecurity experts, however, expect Russia to likely be one of the biggest winners in the unofficial Olympic hacking game.
Threat intelligence experts at Google’s Mandiant analyzed the threat landscape from the Summer Olympics and concluded, with the utmost confidence, that Russian threat teams pose the biggest threat to cybersecurity. “France may face one of the main threats of Russian cyber activity,” the report says. “given the country’s currency and military for Ukraine following the Russian invasion in February 2022. “
Mandiant does not believe Russia could pose a significant risk to the security of the Olympic Games. Tim West, director of risk intelligence at WithSecure, formerly F-Secure Business, believes the Paris Olympics “will face an increased risk of malicious attacks. ” “Hacktivists aligned with pro-Russian states will almost in fact try to disrupt the Olympics in some way,” West said.
In his Cyber Threats to Paris 2024 report, West warns that Russia has the ability and intent to undermine the Olympic Games. “Russia is fully capable of deploying human operations along with cyber attacks,” West said, “and is capable of all types of networks, adding operational technology. “
Such attacks are unlikely to occur unless there is some point of denial, he added. “The Russian state almost in fact has the ability to influence and direct hacktivist collectives, while directing them as a thin, false canopy for its own operations. This is an obfuscation strategy implemented by hackers sponsored by the Russian state.
A recently published risk studies report through FortiGuard Labs, analyzing discussions on the dark web, highlights “an increase in hacktivist activity from pro-Russian outfits, such as LulzSec, noname057(16), Cyber Army Russia Reborn, Cyber Dragon and Dragonforce, which in particular denounces this, is targeting the Olympics. FortiGuard scholars said they expect hacktivist teams to target infrastructure, media channels and affiliated organizations to “disrupt the course of the games. ” events, undermine credibility and magnify their messages. “the world stage. “
Stephen Kowski, lead generation manager at SlashNext Email Security, told Infosecurity magazine that, in the worst case, such attacks could simply “cause genuine violence or particularly disrupt the Olympics and democratic processes in France. “
The Olympics are “an exclusive confluence of government leaders, big business executives, celebrities and ultra-high net worth billionaires,” warned former FBI special agent Jason Hogg, a cyber threat research expert and managing partner of the Matunuck group. in a verbal email exchange related to protection in upcoming games. Unsurprisingly, this constitutes a trove of government and advertising espionage that Hogg believes may have lasting political and economic implications.
In fact, the Olympics are indeed an Olympic-sized challenge for cybersecurity experts. The good news is that they’ve been instructed just as hard as the athletes who compete to make sure mitigating defenses are in place.
“A dream team made up of the public and organizations worked in collaboration with the National Agency for the Security of Information Systems, the French National Cybersecurity Agency, the International Olympic Committee and the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee,” said Hogg, “to identify improved cybersecurity infrastructure. ” .
These mitigation measures come with a segmented network architecture, incident reaction plans to ensure, through rehearsed scenarios, an immediate reaction to any attack, and a well-established risk intelligence sharing program. User awareness and education also play a role, and the Olympics feature an online data center for those dealing with cybersecurity around gaming.
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