Threats to the 2022 Winter Olympics

Threats to the 2022 Winter Olympics

insikt-logo-blog.png
Note de la rédaction : Le message suivant est un extrait d'un rapport complet. Pour lire l'analyse complète, click here to download the report as a PDF.

This report synthesizes findings from the Recorded Future® Platform and open-source intelligence (OSINT) sources to analyze the threat landscape ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games. The threats analyzed include nation-state cyber operations, financially motivated and hacktivist cyber threats, influence operations, and geopolitical and physical security threats. This report will be of most interest to organizations affiliated with the Olympics organization, Olympic sponsors, or individuals intending to participate in or engage with the upcoming Winter Olympics.

Executive Summary

The hosting of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China, significantly alters the cyber, information, geopolitical, and physical threats that face the Games. This report analyzes a whole spectrum of threats facing the 2022 Winter Olympics, including state-sponsored cyber operations, financially motivated and hacktivist cyber activity, Chinese state-sponsored influence operations, international geopolitical tensions, and physical security threats including protests.

Recorded Future concludes that Russia, Iran, and North Korea likely lack the motivation to launch disruptive cyberattacks against the 2022 Winter Olympics due to their close geopolitical relationships with China. Instead, Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and North Korean state-sponsored cyber operations are more likely to be conducted according to surveillance and cyber espionage intelligence requirements. We did not observe any notable dark web chatter or statements by ransomware groups expressing intent to target the 2022 Winter Olympics, though we did identify advertisements on dark web markets for the sale of account details related to the volunteer and media portals of the Games. Financially motivated threat actors will almost certainly opportunistically exploit the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, particularly with Olympic-themed phishing campaigns, to target a range of victims, including the Games themselves, associated organizations, and individuals attending or engaging with the event. Further, hacktivists will likely target the Games, including corporate sponsors, in response to China’s human rights abuses. Corporate sponsors are already receiving significant online criticism for being associated with the Games being hosted in Beijing.

Hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics is an opportunity for the Chinese government to broadcast the successes of China’s political and economic system. Accordingly, China’s influence operations to promote and support the Beijing Games are mainly positive and target both domestic and international audiences. These influence efforts are paired with a much more negative campaign to defend against criticism of China’s human rights abuses. The Chinese government is already conducting widespread domestic censorship of this criticism and is seeking to downplay and discredit the international diplomatic boycott effort. There have also been grassroots calls for physical protests at the Games, primarily in response to China’s human rights abuses. The most recent news, however, indicates that the public will no longer be able to attend the Games due to strict COVID-19 measures. Protests taking place in the weeks leading up to the Games will likely intensify as the Games begin.

Key Judgments

Note de la rédaction : Cet article est un extrait d'un rapport complet. Pour lire l'analyse complète, click here to download the report as a PDF.