Winter Olympics hacked during opening ceremony

The Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics website went down just before the opening ceremony in South Korea after it was hacked. The website was down for around 12 hours and as there was no official word forthcoming on the day, it looked as though it was not accidental. The outage left users unable to print tickets or view information about the games. The networks around the games venues also went down.

However, the news of the hack was made official the next day:

“We know the cause of the problem, but those kinds of issues occur very frequently during the Olympic Games… We have decided with the IOC that we are not going to reveal the source.”

The spokesperson explained, they are ensuring their systems are secure and that they intend to share no further details in a bid to protect their security even further. Perhaps, this was simply to reassure the public and the sponsors of the games? They did promise a “full report” into the incident, but, there was not a commitment to make it public.

There are also reports that the sponsors were prepared for such an attack with many having insured themselves against a potential hacking. With cybersecurity so obviously a part of the culture of businesses, we want to see more of them protecting themselves rather than simply insuring themselves. After all, it is the public who will be effected int he long run.

If you need help protecting yourself against cyber criminals, contact us now.