Olympic Destroyer: an attack hits the Games when they open

On February 9, 2018, the Winter Olympics opened in PyeongChang. At the same time, the organization’s computer systems are hit by a destructive program. Services necessary for communications and access become unavailable or disrupted.

The attack, called the Olympic Destroyer, isn’t just about displaying a ransom message. It degrades systems and complicates their rehabilitation. The chosen moment gives sabotage a special significance: it strikes an organization before the eyes of the world, while it must ensure a live event.

The US indictment published in 2020 describes a preparation including intrusions into partners and then access to the network of the organizing committee. Dependencies with providers thus appear in the path of the attack; the organizer is not a totally isolated set of machines.

Teams must contain the spread and restore services for the continuation of the Games. The fact that the event continues does not mean that the attempt was innocuous or that all systems remained available during the incident.

The DOJ accuses officers of the 74455 unit of Russian military intelligence and places the operation in a context of reprisals related to the exclusion of Russian athletes. These are the conclusions of an indictment; the account makes neither confession nor judgment absent from the sources.

Olympic Destroyer shows that a target can be chosen for the symbolic value of its calendar. The damage sought is not always a spoil: it can be the disorder produced at the moment when an organization must show that it controls everything.