Pierluigi Paganini
February 26, 2018
On February 9, shortly before the Pyeongchang opening ceremonies on Friday, televisions at the main press centre, wifi at the Olympic Stadium and the official website were taken down.
According to The Washington Post, the incidents were caused by cyber attacks powered by hackers working at Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency that managed to take control in early February of 300 computers linked to the Olympic organization.
The cyber attacks were a retaliation against the International Olympic Committee for banning the Russian team from the Winter Games due to doping cases of Russian athletes.
“Analysts surmise the disruption was retaliation against the International Olympic Committee for banning the Russian team from the Winter Games due to doping violations. No officials from Russia’s Olympic federation were allowed to attend, and while some athletes were permitted to compete under the designation “Olympic Athletes from Russia,” they were unable to display the Russian flag on their uniforms and, if they won medals, their country’s anthem was not played.” reported The Washington Post.
“As of early February, the Russian military agency GRU had access to as many as 300 Olympic-related computers, according to an intelligence report this month.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.”
The cyber attacks caused severe problems to the Olympic organization, many attendees were unable to print their tickets for the ceremony and were not able to participate the event.
According to the authorities, it is a sabotage, Russian cyber soldiers compromised South Korean computer routers and implanted a strain of “malware” that paralyzed the network.
In order to make hard the attribution of the attack, Russian hackers conducted a false flag operation to make it appear the attack originated in North Korea.
“Russian military spies hacked several hundred computers used by authorities at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, according to U.S. intelligence.” continues the Washington Post.
“They did so while trying to make it appear as though the intrusion was conducted by North Korea, what is known as a “false-flag” operation, said two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.”
Stay Tuned.
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(Security Affairs – Russian hackers, Pyeongchang Olympic Games)
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