Opinions expressed by Digital Journal contributors are their own.
Usain Bolt stunning the athletics world with a record-breaking sprint in Beijing. Michael Phelps taking a record-breaking eighth gold medal. Or Derek Redmond’s dad leading his despondent son over the finish line in Barcelona.
While we may not all agree on what the greatest Olympic moment is, there is no denying the Games’ unique ability to bring the world together in admiration for the tenacity of the human spirit and the achievement of sporting excellence.
In keeping with the Olympic spirit, this year’s organizers of the Paris Games have adopted the slogan ‘Games Wide Open’ to reflect their commitment to welcoming people from all over the world to deliver a ‘more responsible, more inclusive, more equal’ Games.
The symbol of their pledge was to be a floating opening ceremony which will carry 10,000 athletes through Paris’ world-famous city centre along the River Seine, a clear departure from the traditional stadium-held opening ceremonies and a nod to Paris’ reputation as a city of creativity and flamboyance.
Organisers anticipated that over 100,000 ticket holders and a further 500,000 fans would attend the ceremony from the riverbank – but these grandiose plans have been shelved for a more modest affair, which will see the number of free seats more than halved to 220,000.
The cause has been mounting concerns over the security of the event, especially following a pair of high-profile thefts of confidential Olympic material that took place recently.
But while readers may be familiar with the perennial danger terrorism and political protest pose towards large-scale sporting events, a new type of threat has placed itself at the very heart of the Olympic security debate — cyberattacks.
Cyberattacks have long been a headache for organisers of the Olympic Games. In 2012, the London Games narrowly avoided a cyberattack on the city’s electrical infrastructure that would have turned the lights off during the Games’ opening showpiece.
In 2016, the Rio de Janeiro organisers were embarrassed by a leak of athletes’ personal health data, which purported to show doctors approving banned medication for high-profile athletes for medical reasons.
And in 2018, a cyberattack on South Korea’s data centres before the Winter Olympics’ opening ceremony in Pyeongchang grounded broadcasters’ drones and prevented spectators from printing out reservations to attend the ceremony, resulting in an unusually high number of empty seats. Like the 2016 attack, this was attributed to the ‘Fancy Beak’ hackers’ collective, thought to be linked to Russian intelligence.
But this year’s Games in Paris are facing a cyberthreat as yet unprecedented in Olympic history. In 2021 the Tokyo Olympics reported that it had faced a staggering 450 million attempted cybersecurity ‘events’ — this year, organisers expect Paris to face 8 to 12 times more than that.
It’s no wonder that Franz Regul, the man charged with leading the Games’ cybersecurity team, stated matter-of-factly to the New York Times: ‘We will be attacked.’
But if the threat of cyberattack is unavoidable, what can be done to prevent malign actors from jeopardizing the world’s largest sporting events?
One way is to hire ‘ethical hackers’ to conduct a dress rehearsal, identifying areas of vulnerability and preparing the cyberdefense team to react quickly in the event of an attack, an approach that has already been adopted by the event’s organisers.
But Rotem Farkash, a cybersecurity expert with a special interest in Artificial Intelligence, explains how AI can be used to improve cybersecurity systems: ‘AI can not only identify cyberattacks more quickly that traditional systems, saving valuable time in the event of a distributed denial-of-service attack, but also be deployed predictively, allowing organisations to stress-test cyberdefenses more efficiently against a range of possible attacks.’
Fortunately, the Games’ organisers are well aware of the risks posed and are using every tool in their arsenal, including AI, to ensure the Games run smoothly. Just recently Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee told reporters that athletes will be provided with a ‘pro-active AI safeguarding tool’ to protect them from attack.
The arms race between disruptive cyberattackers and the world’s largest sporting events is well under way, and it is clear AI will play a central role in dictating who gains the upper hand.
For the moment, let’s hope the Games’ cybersecurity experts can protect the organisers’ admirable ambitions and that Paris can deliver yet more unforgettable moments to be cherished for years to come.
