I remember when growing up, watching the Summer Olympics was
always a huge thing for me and my parents.
They really loved the opening ceremonies, and probably one of their most
favorite sports to watch (as well as mine) was swimming. It was fun to see all of the spectators on
TV, cheering on their favorite athletes, and just essentially partying and
having a good time.
Back then, the thoughts of Cyberattacks and even a world pandemic
never crossed people’s minds. The only
fear back then was the physical one, in which people could possibly carry a
weapon, such as a gun. There was of
course that one bombing, in which numerous people were injured.
But fast forward to now, and the entire sporting venue has
changed literally a world over.
The COVID19 pandemic has changed everything, even including the
Olympics. The perfect example of this were
the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. It was supposed
to occur in 2020, but with the outbreak, it was rescheduled to 2021.
But even then, there was thought of rescheduling it yet
again, because of a new onslaught of COVID19 which was starting to resurface
again in Tokyo.
But the country forged ahead anyways, and decided to have
it, but with the caveat were that there were no spectators allowed into the venues. Many people questioned this, and even started
to ask why even bother having it?
But the Japanese government went ahead with it anyways, and the
results that were yielded from it was actually in the end a double-edged sword
for the country.
For example, there was a net loss of well over $30 billion,
and some even question if the country will be even able to recoup from this huge
deficit. But on the flip side, these
Olympics did prove one thing: The
Cybersecurity initiatives and efforts that were undertaken were amongst the
best that ever happened in any public venue setting.
The consortium of people that were responsible for planning
all of this was known as the “Olympic Cybersecurity Work Group for the Cyber
Threat Alliance”, or also known as the “CTA” for short.
This particular alliance met many times up to the actual run
up of the Olympics, and prepared numerous Cyber analyses and presented their
findings numerous times to the higher ups of the Olympic Committee.
They even went beyond this, and actually updated their documentation
and findings in real time as possible, new threat variants were emerging on the
horizon. The group heavily cautioned the
Japanese government of possible Cyber attacks by nation state actors, especially
as it related to data hijacking, and Deepfakes, which could have been used to
launch massive Phishing campaigns.
Other possible targets were even the Critical Infrastructure
of Japan.
Since it appeared now that the Olympics could only be
attended in the virtual sense by live steaming only, this would be the next
possible target by the Cyberattackers. Because
of this, the Cyber vendor that was primarily responsible for the Cyber defenses
of the Tokyo Olympics, NTT Communications, really then stepped up their ante.
For example, an astonishing 11,000 Wi-Fi access points were
deployed, and were watched on a 24 X 7 X 365 basis in order to make sure that they
were not tampered with by any means.
Also, great efforts were also taken to protect the endpoints
of these systems, as they were also favored targets as well. The results of these massive efforts
eventually paid off.
There were no actual Cyber threats that were occurred, and
it was even reported that over 450 million potential Cyber-attacks were blocked. More details about this can be found on the link
below:
https://group.ntt/en/newsrelease/2021/10/21/211021a.html
This sheer volume represents more 2.5X of the total number
of Cyberattacks that took place at the London 2012 Summer Olympics. How was NTT able to yield this kind of
success? They have attributed to the
following reasons:
*Taking a holistic and proactive approach (which is
exemplified by all of the reports and findings that they published and presented
to the Olympic Committee);
*Constantly monitoring the Cyber threat landscape on a real
time basis;
*The deployment of various SOC based services;
*Having a dedicated team of more than 200 Cyber
professionals on hand, ready to act on a moment’s notice.
My Thoughts On This
Well, I have to be honest, it is great to see a
Cybersecurity take such a proactive approach when it comes to fortifying the
lines of defenses, and having such a great success with it. In fact, this
probably the first time that I have ever written anything like this.
But now, here is the interesting thing: The Winter Olympic Games are supposed to
happen in 2022, and of all places, in China.
The good news here is that NTT will be the same Cyber vendor
here as well, so hopefully the same rate of success will also carry over here
as well. According to their reports,
there could be well over half a billion Cyber events that could take place.
Just try to fathom that kind of number!!! But it is important to keep in mind that NTT
will have to probably reevaluate their Cyber portfolio for Beijing, because of
the constantly changing threat landscape, especially with the recent rash of
Ransomware attacks.
But once again, because of the recent variants of COVID19
that have also broken out, there will be no spectators allowed either at these
games. Therefore once again, live streaming
will be what will primarily be used to watch the athletes.
I am expecting that the bulk of the Cyber security measures
will have to take place here, especially when it comes to the use of Deepfakes,
as described earlier.
While we are fortunate to have other means to have the Olympics,
whether it is Winter or Summer, the days of seeing and watching people come together
could now very well be gone. What is the
next thing to happen? Well, the athletes
could represent themselves as Avatars, and have the Olympics in the Metaverse.
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