Winter Olympics: Games may be over, but cybersecurity worries linger in background
- Before the Games athletes were warned to use ‘burner’ phones and laptops, not all of them bothered
- US-born Chinese freestyle skiing sensation Eileen Gu posted multiple times on Instagram during the course of the Olympics
Warnings to use disposable “burner” phones and laptops. Privacy-protecting software. Concerns about a security flaw in an official Games smartphone app.
Such precautions fuelled unease about data privacy for competitors and attendees at the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Not everyone heeded them.
“Honestly, I’ve been coming to China for 12 years or whatever, and I’m not that important,” Mark McMorris, the Canadian snowboarder, said. “Maybe if I was a diplomat or something, then I’d switch out my phone.”
Nefarious cyber activity is a flashpoint in the geopolitical rivalry between China and the West. Beijing has long been accused by the US and technology watchdogs of widespread online snooping and data pilfering, allegations it denies.
Now the Games have ended, and some 16,000 athletes, organisers, journalists and other visitors are heading home, concerns turn to what malware and other problems those who failed to heed the warnings might be carrying with them.
The good news: cybersecurity firm Mandiant said there’s been no sign of any “intrusion activity” tied to the Olympics by the Chinese or other governments.
But that should not be taken as a sign that nothing happened, said Benjamin Read, Mandiant’s director of cyber espionage analysis.