The reason why the FBI advises the athletes of the Beijing Winter Olympics not to take their mobile to China

On By Garmin Philip

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned of the possibility of massive cyberattacks during the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing. For this reason, they discourage athletes from carrying their personal mobile devices with them.

From Friday, February 4 to 20 of the same month, the Winter Olympic Games will be held in the city of Beijing.

Due to the multitude of security breaches that took place at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, many countries prepare and alert their athletes of this type of attack.

“The National Olympic Committees of some Western countries are also advising their athletes to leave their personal devices at home or use temporary phones due to concerns about cybersecurity at the Games.”, notes the FBI.

And it is that all this arises for great reasons. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics saw numerous bombings leading to cyber incidents. The attacks were based on malware, email spoofing, phishing or use of websites and fake streaming services.

Artificial intelligence has infinite uses. One of the most interesting has to do with the improvement in security. Computer scientists from Boston University have developed an Artificial Intelligence that locates flaws in the software that cybercriminals use to attack.

The FBI noted that NTT Corporation, the official service provider for this event, recorded a total of more than 450 million cybersecurity breach attempts. It should be noted that none were ultimately successful. These, after the end of the event, described their fight against these attacks as “Herculean” and compared it with “Harry Potter’s Final Battle”.

Many countries like the United Kingdom or the Netherlands have already taken action in these games and not only to protect themselves from cyber attacks, but also to stay away from Chinese government surveillance.

“Cybersecurity is part of the risk assessment carried out for the trip to China” and that as a result, “Dutch team members will be equipped with unused devices to protect their personal data from Chinese surveillance”, declared from the Dutch Olympic committee.

Malware targeting mobile devices has not stopped growing, while users keep their phones unprotected. Furthermore, attacks are now targeting the Internet of Things, a sector with a very low level of security.

These are offering new mobiles and computers to their athletes. As they say, it is the first time that this type of recommendation is becoming necessary.

Ahead of the upcoming Olympics, they are also concerned about mobile apps and digital wallets that track COVID-19 vaccination status as they could allow cybercriminals to steal personal information or install tracking tools, malicious code or malware.

Reference-computerhoy.com