Iran is behind a recent influence campaign aimed at intimidating members of the Israeli delegation to the Paris Olympics, the National Cyber Directorate announced on Thursday after a thorough investigation.
According to the investigation, the campaign involves hackers creating social media channels to publish personal information about the delegation members and sending them threatening messages. The Directorate stated that it is actively working with the State Attorney’s Cyber Unit to shut down these channels.
The hackers have reportedly been posing as a French organization named GUD to carry out their campaign.The Directorate said that it is coordinating with the Israeli Olympic Committee and the Security and Emergency Department of the Culture and Sports Ministry to ensure the safety of the delegation members.
Gabi Portnoy, head of the National Cyber Directorate, said: “Iran is exploiting an apolitical international sporting competition to promote digital terrorism against Israel and its right to participate in these competitions.”
Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar remarked, “We are witnessing attempts by the Iranian regime to intimidate Israeli athletes and carry out psychological terror against our amazing delegation. We are here in Paris, continuing with full force, and nothing will stop us.”
“Our athletes are more prepared and determined than ever to achieve great results, and our security apparatus is ready for any scenario. We will not relent until we topple the Iranian regime,” he added.
Cyber attacks on the Olympics are "inevitable"
Cyberattacks on the Paris Olympics are inevitable, and France will do everything in its power to limit any impact they may have on the event, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said on Thursday.
“We are a target. There will be cyber attacks. The key thing is to limit their impact,” Attal told reporters at the headquarters of France’s ANSSI software security agency.
The technology risks faced by the Paris Olympics were highlighted earlier this month by a global tech outage involving the company CrowdStrike.
CrowdStrike’s problems last week forced broadcasters off the air, leaving customers without access to healthcare and banking services. It also affected some of the organizers’ operations at the Paris Games.