About 450M cyberattacks prevented during Tokyo Olympics

By Ahmet Furkan Mercan

TOKYO (AA) - Around 450 million cyberattacks were avoided at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics as attempts against the official website and organizing committee’s system were blocked each time, local media reported Tuesday.

The cyberattack attempts took place from the opening of the Olympics on July 23 to the closing of the Paralympics on Sept. 5, reports said.

"Thanks to information sharing and countermeasures taken by the parties, we were able to prevent cyberattacks without causing any damage," the organizing committee said in a statement.

The National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC), which is affiliated with the Japanese government, reported that the course of the tournament was not affected by the attacks, despite numerous attempts at unauthorized entry into competitions, including the opening and closing ceremonies.

According to Kyodo news agency, Trend Micro, a major internet security firm, announced that the number of attacks was less compared to the 2012 London Summer Games and the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

Due to the fact that the Tokyo Games were held without spectators because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company assessed that "hackers could not use ticket and audience information maliciously.”

Kyodo said the London Olympics saw the highest number of confirmed cyberattacks on record, with the official website targeted around 200 million times and attacks on all related organizations totaling around 2.3 billion.

It said that during the PyeongChang Olympics, around 600 million cyberattacks were attempted.

*Writing by Merve Berker