Scammers Target Olympic Venue With Ransomware Attack

French police are reportedly investigating a ransomware attack at a Paris Olympic venue.

The attack, the subject of a Tuesday (Aug. 6) report by Reuters, is the latest such incident tied to this year’s summer games.

In this case, criminals targeted the central computer system at the Grand Palais exhibition hall in Paris, where events such as fencing and Taekwondo are being hosted. That computer system also handles data for 40 affiliated museums, French prosecutors told Reuters.

According to the report, the attackers had demanded a ransom payment — to be turned over in 48 hours — and threatened to publish financial data online unless they received an unspecified amount of money.

France’s museums organization, “Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais,” told Reuters it had asked national cybersecurity agency ANSSI to investigate the incident and that no data extraction had been found.

The incident comes a little more than a week after vandals severed a number of fiber optic cables carrying broadband service across France. It was the second attack on France’s infrastructure, following “coordinated” fires on rail lines which disrupted train travel before the opening ceremonies.

PYMNTS wrote last month that cybersecurity professionals approached the Olympics by planning for a number of scenarios that make the global event a target.

“I would anticipate that the cybersecurity threats targeting the 2024 Olympics in Paris will be diverse, sophisticated, and persistent,” Steven Baer, vice president, field sales and services at cybersecurity firm NetWitness, told security news source Dark Reading.

“I would expect to see cyberattacks aimed at stealing sensitive data, disrupting critical infrastructure, sabotaging operations, extorting money, or spreading propaganda and misinformation,” Baer added. “The Games are a prime opportunity for cybercriminals, nation-state actors, hacktivists, and terrorists to exploit the vulnerabilities of a high-profile event with a global audience.”

The previous Summer Olympics, in Tokyo in 2021, were subjected to roughly 450 million cyberattacks, according to technology giant Cisco. That company is an official partner for Paris 2024, and has said it expects eight times more attacks this year.

As PYMNTS wrote recently, it’s part of a broader pattern in this “year of the cyberattack,” one that has seen 82% of eCommerce merchants suffer attacks, with 47% of those companies saying the attacks led to lost customers and revenue.

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