The NTT Corporation, which was in charge of supplying a large portion of the network security and telecommunications services for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo this year, claimed that over 450 million attempted cyberattacks occurred throughout the event. Officials from the company have stated that none of the attacks were successful and that the games went off without a hitch. Despite this, the total number of attacks was 2.5 times higher than during the 2012 London Olympics.
Emotet malware, email phishing, and phoney websites that looked like the official Games sites were among the assault types, according to NTT. NTT further claims that the attacks were successfully thwarted due to 200 cybersecurity professionals who had undergone extensive training and simulations of anticipated attacks before the games. These dangers were not unexpected; the company had anticipated ransomware and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks from state-sponsored hackers, as well as strikes against key infrastructure.
"Cybercriminals certainly saw the Games -- and its related supply chain -- as a high-value target with low downtime tolerance. After all, crime follows opportunity. And with connected stadiums, fan engagement platforms, and complete digital replicas of sporting venues and the events themselves becoming the norm, there's plenty of IT infrastructure and data to target -- and via a multitude of components," NTT's Andrea MacLean said.
NTT released a detailed report on the games, stating that it offered both communication and broadcasting services to connect the Games venues with the Tokyo Big Sight, which served as an International Broadcast Centre. To prepare its cybersecurity team, NTT stated it performed various cybersecurity training programmes and ran simulations ahead of the event.
However, NTT was not the only corporation to foresee the threats. The FBI also issued a private advisory before the event, advising individuals working on the 2020 Olympics to be prepared for possible threats. According to the FBI report, the attacks could include "threats to block or disrupt live broadcasts of the event, steal and possibly hack and leak sensitive data, or impact public or private digital infrastructure supporting the Olympics, or impact public or private digital infrastructure supporting the Olympics."
The FBI's notification went on to mention the Pyeongchang cyberattack in February 2018, when Russian hackers used the OlympicDestroyer malware to destroy web servers during the opening ceremony.
