There was no competition for Usain Bolt for a long time until Yohan Blake proved to be quite the competitor. Bolt was always the sole winner for the 100 m and 200 m races in world championships but when Blake beat Bolt in both those distances, the world had to start picking their new favorite.

Keeping London Olympics away from hacktivists

Right before the Olympics, amidst all the media hysteria that surrounded Bolt, he confidently exclaimed that he was and will be the champion. Pointing blatantly at Blake, he said that others may win the race once or twice but a true champion lasts forever. He said that he would prove his worth when the times comes.

The Olympics has arrived and the time has come. Imagine this. The two fastest men in the world finish their race and as soon as they look up to the big screen that would change the present time for both of them, a political message spills on the screen instead of the timing.

With the onset of the World’s biggest games, there are analysts, cyber professionals and security personnel who are trying to figure out just how the system was hacked. In total there are 35 difference venues which will host various games throughout the time frame and any one of them can be attacked, no matter how unlikely it seems. They are known as hacktivists and they do just what their name spells out to be.

A former cyber security official said: “The digital systems recording scores and timings are susceptible to attack and will be targeted by hacktivists wanting to make a statement and by organized crime groups looking to profit from betting on events.”

There is no information or a way to retrieve what the time was, when the clock was stopped or who the winner came out to be. Instead a big picture filled the board and those looking could not lower their eyebrows back down.

This is no new dilemma for the organizers. The same issue was tackled during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which had more number of such political attacks.

There are a number of suspect groups who target mega events like this to attract attention, which they sadly successfully do. The Olympics organizing committee are making sure that the games are free of any and all cyber attacks as they spend $750 million on its technology. Its more like a battle between their screen space and Olympics screen space.

After all, the big screen does get all the attention.

Tags: Cyber Security, Hacktivists, London Olympics 2012, Olympics, Sports