Cybersecurity at the 2024 Olympics: assessment and key lessons learned

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Mélanie Lebrun
31/1/2025

Hello ️🎉,

Welcome back to the January edition of the IT Recap. I think everyone can see it coming: we're going to talk about Donald Trump, who has already taken a number of measures as soon as he arrived. Don't worry, I'm not going to talk politics, I'm going to talk cyber.

Clusif held its 2024 panocrim. I'm going to give you a debrief on the Olympics.

📅 Today's agenda:

  • Cybersecurity and the Olympics
  • US cybersecurity authorities abolished
  • AI in freestyle?
  • Data leakage: what does the CNIL have to say?
  • The miscellaneous section
  • Cyberattacks of the month
  • News at Youzer

👉 Go !!

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🤺 Cybersecurity and the Olympic Games: a colossal challenge met

Organizing the Olympic Games means managing an ultra-connected, ephemeral city, where every IT system must function without a hitch... while at the same time being the target of continuous cyber-attacks. A titanic mission requiring over 4 years of preparation and constant vigilance.

The threat was real: 55 billion cybersecurity events detected, 71,000 alerts processed, and 2,200 incidents requiring human intervention.

DDoS, physical intrusion attempts, targeted phishing, supply chain attacks... The attackers were well prepared, but the cyber team was even more so.

The SOC (Security Operations Center) ran 24/7 for eight weeks, with around a hundred experts on permanent rotation. Field teams, nicknamed the "running squad", criss-crossed the sites to identify and correct vulnerabilities before they became exploitable breaches.

Passwords on Post-it notes? Data center doors stuck open? Fixed in a hurry, because every detail counted.

So how do you explain the fact that, despite this tsunami of threats, the Olympic Games went off without a major incident?

Three pillars have made the difference:
🔹 Anticipation: Preparation started very early, with repeated simulations and training.
🔹 Expertise: An ecosystem bringing together the best experts, both from private partners and public authorities.
🔹 Cooperation: Working hand in hand with ANSSI, the major cybersecurity players and all the stakeholders in the Olympics.

But above all, the key is people. Massive awareness-raising, intensive training, and a close-knit, sharp cyber team. A few months before the Games, a targeted spear phishing simulation showed impressive results: 0 clicks on malicious links. Proof that preparation pays off.

Cybersecurity for the 2024 Olympics is a success because it was a collective effort.

A reminder that safety is first and foremost a question of preparation, rigor... and the people who make the difference.


Source: Clusif conference, January 23, 2025 - speaker Franz Regul, cybersecurity director, COJOP Paris 2024.

Debriefing the Paris 2024 cyber team

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🤔 Abolition of DHS - Department of Homeland Security

The Trump administration recently disbanded key committees such as the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), which investigated major cyberattacks such as "Salt Typhoon", attributed to Chinese-backed hackers. This decision is part of a drive to rationalize public spending and centralize initiatives for more direct management of national priorities. The aim seems to be to limit costs and avoid dispersal of effort, while favoring a more centralized approach to cybersecurity issues. However, it does raise concerns about the impact on cybersecurity.

  • Less transparency and analysis: Without these committees, investigations into cyber threats risk lacking depth and shared learning.
  • Loss of international coordination: cooperation with allies could weaken, isolating the United States.
  • Encouraging attackers: This decision could be seen as a sign of weakness, encouraging cybercriminals to step up their actions.
  • Without these independent public structures, the USA will turn to the private sector for cybersecurity. They may be more reactive, but their main objective is financial.

I pushed the analysis further with this thought: what's the point? Perhaps the USA doesn't want to offend China, with whom tensions are already high. Independent experts will have no difficulty in pointing out security flaws in the American system, which the administration has no desire to show. A little opacity is preferable.

While this decision reflects a desire to simplify structures and refocus efforts, it could also create vulnerabilities in the medium and long term. Cybersecurity, a complex and constantly evolving field, requires a balance between administrative efficiency, international collaboration and the ability to adapt to emerging threats.

Source : LeMagIT

Abolition of the DHS in the USA

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🤖 AI in freestyle?

President Donald Trump recently rescinded Joe Biden's executive order framing the risks associated with artificial intelligence. This decision aims to stimulate technological innovation by removing regulations deemed restrictive, but raises debates about its short- and long-term impacts.

The repeal will accelerate the development of AI by reducing bureaucratic constraints. American companies will be able to bring their products to market more quickly, strengthening their competitiveness against powers such as China and Europe. This more flexible framework encourages investment and innovation, particularly in start-ups and emerging technologies. At the same time, a new working group will propose a national strategy to maintain American leadership.

However, the absence of regulation increases the risk of abuse. Technologies could be deployed without sufficient assessment of their ethical and security impacts, exposing the public to algorithmic biases or cyberthreats. What's more, this approach could weaken responsible AI initiatives and complicate international relations, particularly with the European Union, which advocates strict regulatory frameworks.

The balance between innovation and regulation will be crucial to prevent these advances from becoming sources of new societal challenges.


Source : APNews, TheVerge, LeMagIT

AI liberation, good or bad

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💧 Data leakage, what does the CNIL say?

In 2024, CNIL observed a significant increase in personal data breaches, with a 20% rise on the previous year, reaching a total of 5,629 reported incidents.

Several of these breaches involved large-scale databases, affecting millions of French citizens. Faced with this worrying situation, the CNIL recommends that organizations strengthen their security measures to protect the personal data they hold.

At the same time, the re-use of personal data has become a central issue. The CNIL points out that any re-use must comply with the fundamental principles of the RGPD, in particular compatibility with the initial purpose of collection, obtaining the explicit consent of data subjects in the event of a new purpose, guaranteeing data quality and security, and informing individuals of their rights.

It is essential for organizations to remain vigilant and implement appropriate measures to ensure the protection of personal data, both when it is collected and when it is reused.

Source : CNIL

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Collage

  • A massive data leak involving Gravy Analytics, a company specializing in the collection of geolocation data, was recently revealed. A sample of 30 million identifiers out of a total of 7 billion was briefly posted on a Russian hacker forum before being removed.
    The company collects geolocation data via applications and then resells this information.
    Although users' identities are not directly exposed, it is possible to deduce them by combining this data with other information. Government agencies such as the FBI are among the users of this data, raising questions about the surveillance of citizens.
    Here are just a few of the applications concerned: Tinder, Grindr, Yahoo Mail, Candy Crush... more than 3,000 applications are involved, with themes including gaming, religion, health...
    Source : Numerama
  • The European Data Protection Association has lodged a complaint against a number of companies, including AliExpress, Shein, Tiktok and Xiaomi Technology, for confirming data transfers to China. The association considers that China, as an authoritarian country, does not offer the same levels of data protection as the EU.

  • Since I'm sending you this news just after Deepseek's announcement here's a quick rundown:
    Positive points:
    ▪️Rapidité and fluidity: Ultra-fast responses, especially for document analysis.
    ▪️Capacités advanced : Good file management (up to 50 documents, 100 MB per file).
    ▪️Performances open-source: Outperforms other open-source models in benchmarks.
    ▪️Coût ultra-competitive: API far less expensive than the competition.
    ▪️Architecture optimized MoE: Enables more efficient resource management.
    ▪️Bonne support for Chinese and multilingual languages.

    Negative points:
    ▪️Fiabilitéanswers: Some factual errors, especially in web search.
    ▪️Censure and bias: Blocking of sensitive subjects such as Tiananmen without an Internet connection.
    ▪️Moins performance than GPT-4o & Claude: Particularly for complex tasks.
    ▪️Manque features: No image generation.
    ▪️Problèmes security and privacy: Data stored in China, not RGPD and AI Act compliant.
    ▪️Absence custom memory: Less suitable for long, in-depth uses.
    Source : Ludovic Salenne
Deepseek focuses on AI

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☠️ Cyberattacks of the month

Kiabi : cybercriminals penetrate 20,000 customer accounts, accessing personal data such as surname, first name, address and 🥁 IBAN. This attack is most likely of the credential stuffing type i.e. your data is sold and hackers attempt numerous sites with email + password (which is reused all the time).

Showroomprivé : a series of attempted connections to customer accounts has taken place. We are still dealing with a crendial stuffing attack. Showroomprivé has identified the accounts concerned and reset their passwords.

E.Leclerc: attempts to access Primes énergies accounts. The company recommends changing passwords. The data exposed includes surname, first name, e-mail address, login details, password, account number, etc.

Several sports federations: 4.5 million items of data were exflited. The federations concerned are: boxing, motor sports, motorcycling, roller skating & skateboarding, archery, mountaineering and climbing, strength, sports and culture.

ENGlobal: an American company that manages engineering and automation services for the US federal government and critical infrastructures has been hacked. Personal data compromised and access encrypted.

Deepseek : a vulnerability was exploited and 1 million lines of logs were exposed. It included clear discussions, API keys and back-end development details.

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What's new at Youzer?

The right rights for the right person

Assigning the right rights to the right person also means regularly checking that this policy is always correctly applied.
At Youzer we have a module called 'alignment' which enables you to check that each user has access and rights in line with their basic profile.


Profiles are managed by application packages.

  • You configure a set of specific applications and rights for a particular department, job type, contract, etc.
  • You assign a specific package to a user.

=> Youzer warns you if there is a discrepancy between the package that has been applied for a user and the accesses and rights currently assigned to him/her.

If the discrepancy is real, an automatic correction is suggested, otherwise you can ignore the recommendation.

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Internet humor / openai /deepseek

Linkedin Melanie Lebrun

Every month I send you my discoveries, my analysis on IT news.
I do a lot of monitoring and I share it all!

I'm Mélanie and I'm Youzer's marketing manager.

About me? I have an unquenchable thirst for learning! I'd rather read a book 100 times than watch a movie. I'm a fan of HP 🧙🏼.
I do running and collective sport roller (don't look for it, it's dangerous).