Cyber attack on the Winter Olympics: what happened and why is it relevant

Over the past few days, Italy has confirmed the neutralization of a cyberattack on the Winter Olympics after detecting coordinated attempts to saturate the servers from several online sites linked to the organization of the event. The incident, attributed to actors of Russian origin according to published information, once again places the focus on enterprise IT security and in the protection of critical infrastructures, especially when it comes to events with the highest international visibility.

‍

What is known about the cyberattack?

According to the information released, the intrusion attempts were intended to cause a denial of service (DDoS) against digital platforms related to Winter Olympics. The objective was clear: interrupt the availability of online services by saturating traffic.

The Italian authorities have indicated that:

• The attack was detected and mitigated in time.
• No serious impacts have been reported in the operation.
• They were activated preventive response and reinforcement mechanisms.

This type of institutional communication reinforces the credibility of the incident and allows it to be analyzed as a Real computer attack, not like an unverified leak.

‍

Why this sector is a priority objective

Major sporting events work like temporary critical infrastructures. Even if their duration is limited, they concentrate essential digital assets for weeks —or months—:

• Information and accreditation portals.
• Ticketing and access management systems.
• Broadcast and communication platforms.
• Real-time logistics and coordination services.

For an attacker, the incentive is obvious: a single ruling has an immediate media, reputational and political impact. Therefore, these environments are common objectives both of organized cybercrime How of geopolitically motivated campaigns.

‍

How do these types of attacks occur

Service saturation attacks are one of the most used techniques in scenarios of high public exposure. These types of cyberattacks are usually caused by five main causes:

1. Distributed botnets which generate large volumes of traffic.
2. Amplification through misconfigured services.
3. Lack of advanced perimeter protection.
4. Insufficient scaling capacity in critical infrastructures.
5. Absence of continuous monitoring that makes it possible to detect abnormal patterns in time.

Although technically they are not always complex, its effectiveness lies in the operational and communicative impact, not in the sophistication of the code.

‍

Key lessons for companies and organizations

Beyond the Olympic context, this incident leaves lessons applicable to any organization with digital services exposed to the Internet:

• Availability is a critical asset: It's not only important to protect data, but to ensure that services continue to work.
• Early detection makes a difference: Identifying an attack in its early stages dramatically reduces the impact.
• Response plans cannot be improvised: must be defined, tested and aligned with business continuity.
• 24/7 visibility is essential: Without continuous monitoring, DDoS attacks can go undetected until the damage is apparent.

In many cases, the most costly security breaches are not caused by serious technical failures, but by lack of preparation and coordinated response.

‍

Cybersecurity as a strategic priority

The attempted cyberattack against the Winter Olympics shows that cybersecurity is no longer an exclusive IT issue. It's a strategic business and country priority.

Any organization that:

• depends on online services,
• has public visibility,
• manage critical operations,

can become the target of a computer attack, even without being the ultimate target of the attacking actor.

‍

In Apolo Cybersecurity we help organizations to anticipate, detect and respond in the face of this type of threat through services of SOC 24/7, DDoS protection, continuous monitoring, incident response plans and digital resilience analysis.

If you want to assess your organization's actual level of exposure and reinforce its response capacity, contact our team for a no-obligation cybersecurity assessment. Prevention remains the best defense against cyberattacks.