Russia, China and North Korea will pose biggest cyber threats to Tokyo Olympics: report

Russia, China and North Korea will pose the biggest cyber threats to the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, a report released Wednesday found.

The Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA) — which is comprised of major global cybersecurity companies including McAfee, Cisco and Palo Alto Networks — detailed the cyber threats that would likely face the upcoming Olympic Games, due to take place in July and August, in its new report.

CTA wrote that the three countries posed threats due to geopolitical tensions with Japan and based on previous track records of cyberattacks. 

“Japan is at the center of several regional conflicts, and its role as Olympics host is likely to make the country a high-priority target for longtime adversaries looking to embarrass Tokyo on the international stage,” CTA wrote. 

Potential methods of attack the countries might use include disinformation campaigns on social media, disrupting critical systems key to Olympics events and targeted data leaks. 

Wi-Fi networks, ticketing systems and anti-doping organizations were judged by CTA to be most at-risk from these types of cyberattacks, along with Japanese officials, partner governments and sponsors of the Olympics. 

Of the three countries, CTA concluded that Russia poses the biggest threat. This stems from Russian athletes being banned from competing in the 2020 Olympics under the Russian flag due to evidence that Russia manipulated data to protect athletes involved in state-sponsored doping.

CTA noted that Iran, which is normally included along with the other three countries as a top cyber threat, will likely not pose a threat to the Tokyo Olympics.

“Iran is less likely to conduct Olympics-related cyber threat operations,” CTA wrote. “Despite Iran’s history of conducting offensive cyber campaigns globally, we assess that it is not in Tehran’s strategic interest to compromise the Tokyo Games or affiliated entities.” 

Beyond foreign cyber threats, CTA also warned that cyber criminals unaffiliated with nation states will also target the Olympics to try to exploit “tourists’ poor cybersecurity awareness.”

CTA urged the Japanese government to create plans to respond to major cyberattacks, and to check critical systems for vulnerabilities to hackers regularly. 

Over the past decade, hackers have stepped up attacks on Olympic Games, with CTA noting that hackers successfully interrupted the stadium Wi-Fi system and took the official Olympics website offline during the opening ceremonies at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.  

CTA is not the only group to warn of cyberattacks involving the Tokyo Olympics. Reuters reported earlier this month that the Bank of Japan warned the country’s financial institutions of the likelihood that attempted cyberattacks would increase ahead of the Olympics.

The official Twitter accounts for the Olympics and for the International Olympic Committee were hacked last week and temporarily locked by Twitter.