In the run-up to the Paris Olympics, waves of denial-of-service attacks against French websites have been launched by Russian hacktivists, raising fears of larger cyber threats during the games. Groups HackNeT and the People's Cyber Army, both attributed to the Sandworm entity, claimed responsibility, calling the attacks "training.".
June, the hacktivist groups attacked several tourist websites belonging to the La Rochelle International Film Festival and the Grand Palais. The attacks were then publicized by photographs and website uptime monitoring tools through their social media channels. According to the report from Cyble, the claim was rated as "possibly true," though the legitimacy of these attacks remains unconfirmed.
The Olympic Games are not new to physical and cyber threats. Experts say that such nuisance attacks can act as cover to mask further advanced cyber threats. Past Olympics have seen serious cyber incidents carried out at the 2016 Rio Games, which involved the Fancy Bear Attack, and that of Pyeongchang 2018, which invoked the Olympic Destroyer attack.
According to Kaustubh Medhe, head of research at Cyble, such nuisance attacks may merely be a smokescreen for something much more insidious. In that respect, hardware security, for instance, the Paris Olympic committee has been working on the threat of DDoS attacks and how to improve cyber security.
As the games are drawing nearer, the possibility of cyber threats once again against athletes and spectators brings to the fore the importance of being more vigilant, backed by robust cybersecurity defenses to safeguard against digital disruption.