London 2012 Olympics Organizers: We Experienced Serious Cyberattacks

As expected, the IT infrastructure that powered the London 2012 Olympics was targeted on each and every day of the event. However, the competition’s organizers said that none of them managed to cause any problems.

Some of the cyberattacks that targeted the event were automated, while others were “fairly well orchestrated,” London 2012 CIO Gerry Pennell told Computer Weekly in an interview.

Fortunately, the planning and energy invested into organizing the Olympics showed results and not even the major attacks managed to disrupt operations.

Pennell revealed that hacktivists also attempted to take down the official website, but their actions were highly predictable. That’s because before each strike they would publicly state their plans on Twitter by using the #letthegamesbegin hashtag.

“It was interesting watching some of it because some of the groups that were involved, from the hacktivist community, once they got fed up of trying to take us down moved their attentions to other organisations,” the CIO explained.