Cyberattacks on the Paris Olympics are inevitable, says PM
ANSSI, France’s national cybersecurity agency met Thursday prompting French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to warn the public that cyberattacks during the Paris Olympic games would be ‘inevitable.’
Image by Bertrand Guay \ Shutterstock
ANNSI, France’s national cybersecurity agency, met Thursday prompting French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to warn the public that cyberattacks during the Paris Olympic games would be ‘inevitable.’
France will do everything in its power to limit the impact cyberattacks will have on the 2024 Paris Olympic games, the EU leader said on Thursday.
The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Digital Affairs Marina Ferrari met with ANSSI agents on the eve of the opening of the Games.
"We are a target. There will be cyberattacks. The key thing is to limit their scope," Attal told reporters at ANNSI headquarters.
Attal reiterated the message in a post on social media platform X.
“We are doing everything to protect the French, the millions of spectators from all over the world, the athletes, the sports sites and our digital space, he wrote.
“Our country is more than ever a target. We are ready to face it,” Attal said.
The Prime Minister also thanked security teams from France’s National Information Systems Security Agency, who also met Thursday, “for their commitment and their know-how which command respect.”
Nous faisons tout pour protéger les Français, les millions de spectateurs venus des quatre coins du monde, les athlètes, les sites sportifs et notre espace numérique.
undefined Gabriel Attal (@GabrielAttal) July 25, 2024
Notre pays est plus que jamais une cible. Nous sommes prêts à faire face.
Merci aux équipes de @ANSSI_FR,… pic.twitter.com/V7GrfN3Fgg
The 2024 Olympic opening ceremony kicks off Friday, July 26th, and will run through August 8th, followed by the 2024 Paris Paralympics taking place from August 28th through September 8th.
The technology risks faced by the Paris Olympics were highlighted earlier this month by a global tech outage involving the company CrowdStrike which affected some operations of the organizers of the Paris Games.
CrowdStrike's outage last week – caused by a faulty software patch sent out to the cybersecurity vendor’s customers – forced media outlets to go off air and left customers without access to services such as healthcare, banking, and major airline carriers, including American, United Airlines Delta Air Lines, and Air France KLM.
Chief Financial Officer at Air France KLM on Thursday said the worldwide cyber outage would wind up costing the airlines close to $11 million.
Air France is the first of multiple carriers to announce its projected losses due to the July 19th fiasco with CFO Steven Zaat saying the company will face a 10 million euro hit, the equivalent of about 10.85 million USD.
Delta which is still struggling to recover full operations has canceled more than 6,000 flights since Friday and analysts estimate its losses could wind up ballooning to hundreds of millions of dollars.