Reports: Cybercrime threat looms large over Paris Olympics 2024
Several security firms have warned the 2024 Paris Olympics organizers of a cyber threat and that they should prepare well to face a variety of threats. The mega event is set to take place from July 26 to August 11.
According to a report by Google, cyber espionage groups will target the Paris Olympics 2024 for gathering sensitive information. Certainly, Paris will be the hotbed in the coming months due to the presence of high-profile government officials and senior decision makers.
Several entities are likely to spread particular narratives and disinformation to their target audiences. Further, the Games could have to deal with website defacements, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
As per the report by Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm, Russia poses the biggest cyber activity threat to the Paris Olympics. Meanwhile, China, Iran and North Korea present a low to moderate risk.
They claimed that the Russian operators have displayed intelligence collection activities and destructive campaigns in past Olympics events. It also mentions that France faces an elevated risk due to its support for Ukraine after Russia's invasion in 2022.
Although the Russian athletes will participate in the Paris Olympics, they will compete as neutral athletes. This came after the International Olympic Committee decided to ban the athletes from competing under the Russian flag.
Financial threats surrounding Paris 2024 Olympics
The report also alerts the sponsors of possible ticket scams, theft of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and usage of Olympic-related lures in social engineering operations.
France is the fifth-most impacted country by ransomware and data theft extortion activity. The firm expects the cybercrime groups to be active in the runup, and during the Olympics.
Amid growing demands for Olympics, some people can sell counterfeit tickets via fake ticket websites. Furthermore, the groups can leverage the financial transactions happening on the third-party ticket platforms.
Mandiant recommended that people attending the Paris Olympics use VPNs, reduce data access and disable unneccessary features on their mobile devices.