JO Paris: Cyber security, a big challenge

The worries about the organization of the Olympic Games in Paris are increasing. The threats come not only from the offline environment but also from the online environment and they are just as big. This year's Paris Olympics are set to face an unprecedented cyber security challenge, with organizers expecting huge pressure on this summer's sporting event. Organized crime, activists and states will be the main threats during the Olympics, which will take place from July 26 to August 11, while the Paralympics will take place from August 28 to September 8. Paris 2024 organizers, who worked hand in hand with the French National Agency for Information Security (ANSSI) and cyber security companies Cisco and Eviden, want to limit the impact of cyber attacks. "We cannot prevent all attacks, there will be no Games without attacks, but we must limit their impact on the Olympic Games", said Vincent Strubel, the general director of ANSSI. "There are 500 venues, competition venues and local collectives and we have tested them all". Strubel is confident that Paris 2024, which will operate from a cyber security operations center in a location that is being kept secret, will be ready. "The Olympics 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. Paris 2024 paid "ethical hackers" to test its systems and used artificial intelligence to help it sort out threats. "AI helps us make the difference between an inconvenience and a catastrophe. We expect the number of cyber security events to be multiplied by 10 compared to Tokyo (in 2021)," said Franz Regul, Director General for IT at Paris 2024. "In terms of cyber security, four years is the equivalent of a century", explained Eric Greffier, head of partnerships at CISCO. In 2018, a computer virus called "Olympic Destroyer" was used in an attack on the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Games. While Moscow has denied any involvement, the US Department of Justice said in 2020 that it had indicted six Russian intelligence agency hackers for a series of attacks, which included attacks against the Pyeongchang Games. "We would like to have only one opponent, but we are looking at everything and all over the world. Naming potential attackers is not our role, but the state's," said Strubel. Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron said he had no doubt Russia would target the Paris Olympics with malicious attacks.