The context of war on several continents and the boom of hacktivists, militant pirates, will disrupt the cyberspace during the Olympic Games in Paris. Hackers will seek media buzz by attacking websites.
It’s been two years since Russia invaded Ukraine that hacktivists, militant hackers, have been harassing IT services. Their attacks generally cause little damage, but a lot of media noise, and they will certainly draw attention to themselves during the Olympic Games in Paris.
On Telegram, the Russians’ favorite social network, two groups of ultra-nationalist Russian hackers announced that they were targeting France during the 2024 Olympics, announcing the apocalypse, with a montage worthy of a Skyrock blog in 2008.
In concrete terms, there is little chance that transport or ticketing applications will actually be affected. Outages on major services, following DDoS, most often only last a few minutes, or even a few seconds.
This method of cyberattack consists of launching waves of connections directed simultaneously towards a specific site. If the number of requests is high enough, the server is no longer able to process them, and the targeted platform shuts down. This type of attack is certainly annoying, but the impact is limited in time. On the other hand, other sites of Olympic partners could be affected.
Administrations will be targeted during the 2024 Olympic Games
The aim sought by these Russian groups is first of all to highlight their actions. You take the site of a transport network. It is probably protected to avoid these disruptions. The application too. The internal network too. However, you have a platform dedicated to employees or to a few customers which will be more fragile. And that is where the hacktivists will strike. » explains Boris Lecoeur, General Manager of Cloudflare (France). « A simple screenshot of the downed site will be enough for them to start the rumor of a serious cyberattack, which they will try to amplify through social networks. ” he adds.
The sites of administrations and communities will be targeted just as much during the Olympic period. They have a catalog of targets, which they constantly hit. when they focus on one country ” indicates an expert who prefers to remain anonymous at the Sekoia company. The sites of the Normandy region or even Guadeloupe are for example struck at a regular frequency.
Normandy has already been cited as a target four times since the beginning of the year, after each intervention by Emmanuel Macron to condemn an act by Russia.
Increase in cyberattacks against industries linked to sporting events
« The Olympic Games are a phenomenal sounding board. The whole world will have its eyes fixed on France. Some sites will inevitably be targeted, because it is a habit today ” recalls Boris Lecoeur.
Imperva, a branch of the Thales group, notes in a report published on July 24, that DDoS attacks targeting industries associated with major sporting events have increased by 89 %. If your town hall or sports club website is unavailable for one morning in the next few weeks, don’t panic and don’t get carried away, that’s all the hacktivists are waiting for.
Source: www.numerama.com
