The Winter Olympics Are Back, and So Are Attackers

The Olympics have traditionally been a major attack vector for cyber disruption, espionage, and financially motivated attacks.

The 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang saw the Olympic Destroyer malware used to disrupt Wi-Fi, ticket, and venue systems during the opening ceremony of the games. During the Paris 2024 event, there was an increase in scanning, DDoS, and other attempts targeting Olympic-related systems. 

The Milan-Cortina 2026 event kicks off today, promising to be the most geographically distributed Winter Olympics on record. This will see the attack surface expand even further, spanning multiple cities, suppliers, digital platforms, and temporary networks.

Security leaders warn that this creates new opportunities for nation-state actors, ransomware groups, hacktivists, and bad actors targeting everything from core infrastructure to ticketing systems and unsuspecting spectators.

A High-Risk Cybersecurity Environment

According to Daniela Giannini, Senior Security Engineer at Black Duck: “The Olympic Games represent a uniquely high-risk cybersecurity environment because ...