Analysis: What are the main cyber threats for the 2024 Olympic Games?

There were approximately 450 million cyber attacks during the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. In recent years, the pandemic situation (COVID-19) has caused a significant decrease in the risk of security breaches, data theft, or attacks at this sports competition. However, now CISCO experts expect the number of cyber-attacks to increase tenfold during the next Olympic Games in Paris 2024, which will take place between July and August and will be the first without health restrictions. 

A2SECURE team has conducted an analysis on the different types of cyberattack threats expected for these 2024 Summer Olympic Games separating them into two categories: 

• Criminals with economic purposes.
• Criminals carrying out larger scale attacks for political, terrorist and social manipulation purposes. These attacks are usually carried out by criminals from countries such as Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, among many others. 

The first type of cybercriminals, who are motivated by financial gain, may create fake web pages to impersonate individuals, entities or organizations. From these interfaces they could send fraudulent messages to illegally obtain as much money as possible from users’ credit cards. In addition, they can also easily implant malware in electronic devices.

The main threat to the 2024 Olympics will be politically motivated cybercriminals

However, the great source of danger during the 2024 Olympic Games will be the possibility of attacks from some countries, mainly motivated by the war between Russia and Ukraine. Precisely because of this, the Court of Arbitration for Sport has decided to sanction Russia with the Olympic suspension of these games, a fact that has aggravated and motivated even more the interest of cybercriminals. The threat of cyber-attacks targeting critical national infrastructures, public and private companies and assets related to the Olympic Games and the French government is causing a lot of concern.

These types of cybercriminals have no regard for the damage caused to the population and even if they take lives in perpetuating their attacks.

Which countries could perpetuate major attacks at the 2024 Olympic Games?

The 2024 Olympic Games have become the ideal scenario for certain criminals or political and terrorist groups to perpetuate their attacks for gaining profit, notoriety and sensitive information.

Understanding the relevant threats and motivation of the attackers is crucial for organizations participating in the event. This will enable them to develop a resilient security posture and prevent cyberattacks.

Google’s cybersecurity firm, Mandiant, has conducted a thorough analysis on the potential threats ahead of the 2024 Olympics. Through an infographic, Mandiant reflects the countries that could carry out an attack and the group or organization in charge of it. It also points out the main motivation of the criminals: economic or political.

In order to protect an organization and the people who are part of it from all these overwhelming dangers, A2SECURE has identified a series of actions and recommendations that would reduce the risk and prevent attacks during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Cyber-Precautions to Consider for Summer Olympics 2024

1. Enable multi-factor authentication for your accounts.
2. Use stronger passwords. Use letters as well as numbers and special characters so that cybercriminals cannot obtain your personal data, bank account numbers and other valuable information.
3. Use security software to avoid and protect yourself from cybercriminals.
4. Whenever possible, use VPN to protect your identity and location.
5. Disable unnecessary functions of your devices to improve their cybersecurity. 
6. Encrypt the entire disk of your devices.
7. Reduce the access of your data to third parties.