Paris Olympics 2024 Faces More Than 140 Cyberattacks
French authorities announced on Tuesday that over 140 cyberattacks were reported during the Paris Olympics, but none disrupted the events.
Throughout the lead-up to and during the Games, France’s cybersecurity agency was on high alert to protect the organizing committee, ticketing systems, and transportation networks from potential disruptions.
From July 26 to August 11, the government’s cybersecurity agency Anssi logged 119 reports of low-impact “security events” and 22 cases where malicious actors successfully targeted information systems.
The attacks mostly focused on government entities, as well as sports, transport, and telecom infrastructure. About a third of these incidents involved downtime, with half of those being denial-of-service attacks meant to overwhelm servers. The remaining incidents involved attempted or actual breaches and data disclosures.
Anssi reported that the overall impact of these cyber events was generally low.
In early August, the Grand Palais and around 40 other French museums were hit by a ransomware attack, but it did not affect any systems involved in the Olympic Games. Ransomware typically encrypts and blocks computer systems, demanding a ransom for their release.
In comparison, the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 faced 450 million cyber operations, double the number from the 2012 London Olympics. Prior to the Paris Games, Marie-Rose Bruno, director of technology and information systems for the Paris Olympics, had anticipated “eight to 10 times more” cyberattacks than those experienced in Tokyo.