14 DAY TRIAL // Shortly before the start of the 2012 London Olympics, the head of cyber security got a tip that a cyberattack could be launched against the event’s electricity infrastructure during the opening ceremony.
Olympics cyber security head Oliver Hoare has told the BBC that a phone call from the GCHQ woke him up at 4:45 on the day of the opening ceremony.
The intelligence agency had come across some attack tools and information that led them to believe that someone might have been planning a cyberattack against the Olympics.
Hoare and his team put in place contingency plans for the eventuality in which the attacks were real.
In the end, they managed to come up with a plan that would allow them to turn the lights back on within 30 seconds. However, 30 seconds for an event of this magnitude would have been catastrophic in terms of reputation.
This is not the first time we hear of this. In August 2012, unnamed sources told The Guardian that security services warned organizers about the possibility of a cyberattack.