CYBERCRIME is likely to be the biggest security threat for the Paris Olympic Games later this year, a senior figure at the international police organisation Interpol said on Friday (Jan 19).

Lyon-based Interpol, which helps intelligence-sharing among security forces around the world, is working closely with French authorities to identify cyber, terror and other criminal dangers ahead of the Jul 26 to Aug 11 event.

“I think cyber will be the greatest enduring or constant threat,” Stephen Kavanagh, executive director of police services at Interpol, told AFP. “Cybercrime is everywhere all the time, whether that’s disruption of ticket purchase, whether it’s the systems inside an event, whether it’s the transport systems.

“There’s an enormous number of locations (for attacks),” added Kavanagh, a senior former British police officer who is a candidate to take over as secretary general of Interpol later this year.

Japanese telecom company NTT, which provided IT security for the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics held in 2021, reported 450 million individual cyberattacks during the last edition of the Games, twice as many as during the 2012 London Olympics.

Many of those were so-called DDoS attacks, which paralyse the servers hosting a website, as well as attempted hackings, email spoofs, phishing attacks or fake websites.

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American authorities issued a warning before the Tokyo Games that the Olympics were an increasing target for organised cybergangs and state-backed hackers.

A Russian cyber group is suspected of releasing the so-called “Olympic Destroyer” malware shortly before the opening ceremony of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea, from which Russian athletes were banned.

“When the world comes to a country, the best and the worst can sometimes turn up,” said Kavanagh, who has put embracing technology and innovation at the heart of his pitch for the top Interpol job.

He expressed confidence that France could pull off its hugely ambitious plans for the opening ceremony of the Paris Games which will see athletes sail down the river Seine in front of a crowd of up to 600,000 people.

French security services are working closely with their British counterparts who secured the 2012 London Olympics as well as a boat parade on the Thames for the late Queen Elizabeth II in the same year, he said.

An estimated million people lined the Thames in London to watch the Queen’s diamond jubilee flotilla in 2012, with Kavanagh in charge of counter-terrorism operations for the capital’s police at the time.

“There is a precedent here. Of course, the French can deliver that (the opening ceremony). They were closely involved in the 2012 Games with us and the 2012 river pageant. The understanding and the learning between our two countries is remarkable,” he added. AFP