Paris 2024 Olympics Ready To Face Unique Cybersecurity Threats

Vincent Strules, director general of ANSSI. (photo: x @FIC_eu)

JAKARTA The 2024 Paris Olympics are preparing for an unprecedented challenge in terms of cybersecurity, where organizers expect great pressure on this summer's Olympics.

Organized crime, activists and the state will be a major threat during the July 26 Olympics to August 11 and the August 28 Paralympics to September 8. Paris 2024, which has teamed up with France's Agence Nationale de la Securité des Systèmes d'Information (ANCESI) and cybersecurity firms Cisco and Eviden, are trying to limit the impact of cyber attacks.

"We can't prevent all attacks, there won't be an Olympics without an attack, but we have to limit its impact on the Olympics," said Vincent Struge, director-general of ANSSI.

Furthermore, he explained that there are 500 sites, venues, and local groups that have been tested. Struge believes that Paris 2024, which will operate from cybersecurity operations centers in undisclosed locations, will be ready to face these challenges.

"This knife is facing an unprecedented level of threat, but we have also made unprecedented preparations, so I think we are superior to the attackers," he said.

Paris 2024 has also paid ethical hackers to test their systems and use artificial intelligence to help identify threats.

"AI helps us differentiate between disturbances and disasters," said Franz Regul, IT Paris 2024 director.

They estimate the number of cybersecurity events will increase tenfold compared to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Eric Greffier, head of the partnership at CISCO, explained that in terms of cybersecurity, four years is equivalent to one century.

In 2018, a computer virus known as the Olympic Destroyer was used in an attack on the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Although Moscow denies its involvement, the US Department of Justice in 2020 announced that six hackers of Russian intelligence agencies have been charged with carrying out a series of hacks over the past four years that included an attack on the Pyeongchang Olympics.

Strulet insists that they will not name potential attackers, because that is the duty of the state.

Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that he had no doubts that Russia would target the Paris Olympics with malicious intent. The Olympics will take place amid a complex global background, including Russia's war in Ukraine and the Israeli conflict with Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.