From July 26 to September 8 next year, Paris will host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
With less than a year before the start of the competition, the French authorities are preparing to face the multiple cyber threats facing this global event.
Whilst the 2023 Rugby World Cup will likely serve as a 'dry run' for the French authorities, one of the main concerns that has already arisen has been the ability to respond quickly, in the face of cyber threats and attack vectors still unknown.
The symbolism of the Olympic Games, and Paris' recent history as a terrorist target, will mee the current geopolitical issues linked to the war in Ukraine and the question of the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes to create a perfect storm of a privileged target that is potentially exposed.
The response has been to task ANSSI with the cybersecurity of the Games and all digital protection of the sporting event.
A budget of 10mn euros has been dedicated to conducting security audits, and a third of the agency's teams will be dedicated to the Games by their opening.
More recently, on the eve of the NATO Summit in Lithuania on July 11, the city of Vilnius suffered several distributed denial of service cyberattacks, targeting the websites of the municipality.
Both the NATO Summit and the Paris Games share the symbolism of Ukrainian membership and sovereign recognition.
It is reasonable to expect an organisation such as RomCom, located in Russia, whose campaign of phishing aimed to break into participants' computers at the NATO Summit, will attempt to hit the Games.
The events will be spread over fifteen sites and eleven for the Paralympic Games, not counting the sites in Île-de-France and the stadiums throughout the Metropolis and in Tahiti.
These are all computer structures to monitor and protect.
Despite significant preparation, the event will require rapid agility and the ability to intervene quickly, in the event of a security risk.
Efficiency, speed and precision will be the hallmarks of a successful defence.
Identifying and qualifying the threat remains a major challenge.
This involves mapping all assets present on the information system(s) concerned, in order to exclude compromised assets.
So far in advance, may seem excessive.
In the modern world, such anticipation is going to be a key aspect behind the scenes, to allow us to celebrate, together, the Olympic spirit and the greatest sporting event in the world.
He has extensive work experience in various roles within the cybersecurity and software industry, including vice-president at Hexatrust, a cluster of 100 French and European software, cybersecurity leaders and cloud providers.
Gatewatcher is a cybersecurity software provider specializing in advanced intrusion detection and is a market leader in high-performance solutions based on automation and machine learning methods.
Jacques can be reached via LinkedIn and at the Gatewatcher company website: https://www.
This Cyber News was published on www.cyberdefensemagazine.com. Publication date: Wed, 20 Dec 2023 06:13:04 +0000