France Suffers Attack on Broadband Services Amid Olympic Games

Amid a worldwide data breach surge, France is dealing with an older-school type of cyberattack.

As Bloomberg News reported Monday (July 29), vandals have cut several fiber optic cables carrying broadband service across the country, now four days into hosting the Olympic Games.

According to the report, connections serving Paris — where the actual games are being held — were not impacted. However, the vandalism marks the second attack on France’s infrastructure in recent days, after “coordinated” fires on rail lines disrupted train travel before last week’s opening ceremonies.

Telecom companies told Bloomberg they were working on repairs, and that customers could see slower speeds as carriers seek alternate routes.

“We advocate for France reinforcing criminal sanctions for vandalism on telecom infrastructure, which should be put at the same level as vandalism on energy infrastructure,” Romain Bonenfant, head of the French Telecom Federation industry group, told Bloomberg. “Telecom infrastructure, like the railways, covers kilometers across the whole territory — you can’t put surveillance on every part of it.”

PYMNTS reported last month that cybersecurity professionals went into the Olympics preparing 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 last Summer Olympics, held in Tokyo in 2021, suffered roughly 450 million cyberattacks, according to technology giant Cisco, which is an official partner for Paris 2024, and says it expects eight times more attacks this year.

In addition, Google Cloud company Mandiant has warned that hackers could target the Games to cause psychological effects and reputational damage through website defacements, DDoS attacks, wiper malware and operational technology targeting.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote last week about the technology behind the scenes at the games, such as the AI-powered digital twinning used to “streamline operational planning by simulating venue scenarios, optimizing resource allocation and ensuring seamless event execution.”