London Olympics prepares for cyberattack

The Technology Operations Centre for next year’s Olympic games has been unveiled this week, and optimised to ensure it can cope in the event of a cyberattack.

The centre will monitor all of the results from the sports competitions and deliver them to the world’s media in real time.

Atos, who are an IT partner for the games, say that this is more important than ever now that the world is more connected due to the success of smartphones and tablets.

It has been predicted that more than 8.5 billion sports fans will be monitoring the games via an internet connection.

This an estimated 30% more data that needs to be processed than at the Beijing Olympics, which was subject to 12 million cyberattacks per day.

Paul Deighton, London 2012 Chief Executive, commented: “Technology often goes unnoticed and yet is absolutely critical to our success in 2012.”

“The Games cannot happen without technology and I am delighted that that our London 2012 Technology team together with Atos and the team of technology partners are on track to deliver the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012.”

There is some concern that the rise in cyberattacks on governments could prompt a “blended” terrorist attack in which physical and online attacks are carried out at the same time.

However, the Olympic committee said they were unaware of any specific attack and are just taking precautions.

For the first time ever, all sports have been added to the Commentator Information System (CIS), which gives commentators and members of the media the ability to see the results before hearing the crowd.

The touchscreen technology will be available to broadcasters both in London and abroad.

The systems will be monitored at all times by IT security staff at Atos as well as other technology partners.

The centre has been tested for outages, and to see how it will cope with a DDoS attack and steps have been taken to ensure that the system is protected from anything “web-facing”.

The access system has been tested to ensure that people are “accessing space where he/she is authorized.”

Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee said: “Technology is radically changing how spectators enjoy the Olympic Games and our longstanding worldwide partner, Atos, plays a critical role in ensuring technology continues to enhance the spectator experience. The IOC is very impressed with the progress of the preparations in London.”

Other technology partners include Acer, BT, Cisco, Panasonic and Samsung.

“We have our own system within Atos to see the evolution of cyber crimes, and we have contact with relevant authorities to share knowledge and information about what may happen,” Patrick Adiba, VP of Major Events, told the BBC.

Atos and others have been designing and planning the infrastructure for some time, which has given them ample opportunity to study the kinds of attack the information hub could come under.