National Olympic committees in some Western countries are advising their athletes to leave personal devices at home or use temporary phones due to cybersecurity concerns at next month’s Winter Games in Beijing.
Many national olympic committees (NOC) said it will provide its athletes and staff with temporary devices to prevent security risks and fight everything monitoring during the Games which will take place from February 4 to 20 in China.
“Every text message, email, online visit and app access should be assumed to be guarded or compromise,” the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced.
He suggested using laptops and disposable phones or rental during your stay in Beijing or erase all data on personal devices before and after your trip. He also recommended members to install virtual private networks (VPN) on devices before leaving the United States.
Despite the safeguards in place to protect your systems and data, “there should be no expectation of security or confidentiality of data while operating in China,” the USOPC added.
officials Beijing Olympics they could not immediately be reached for comment. The IOC announced that “it is not for us to comment on the advice that an NOC may give to the members of its delegation”.
The Canadian Olympic Committee said it advised its members to consider leaving their personal devices at home and to be more diligent, as the Games present “a unique opportunity for the cybercriminality“.
The Swiss and Swedish committees will also provide new devices to their delegations and informed them of the measures they can take against the cyber security.
“We are also providing athletes with information on the situation in China in cooperation with the organization Civil Rights Defenders, so that athletes can make their own decisions about how to use their personal equipment during Olympic Games“said the Swedish committee.
The British Olympic Association has revealed that it has provided athletes and staff with practical advice on wearing their personal devices in Beijing and that he would provide temporary devices to those who wanted them.
Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant reported last week that the country’s Olympic committee will equip its team members with unused devices.
However, some other countries are less concerned about issues of cyber security en Beijing.
The NOCs of Slovenia and Slovakia said they would not provide temporary devices to team members, while the NOC of Croatia said they would allow their delegation to bring their own devices and Serbia said indicated that no additional cybersecurity measures were planned.
Separately, researchers said the Beijing Organizing Committee’s MY2022 app, which all participants must use to monitor their health, contains security flaws that make it vulnerable to hackers. privacy breaches.
Yu Hong, head of the Beijing Organizing Committee’s technology department, said such problems are natural in the development of this type of app, which his department is constantly updating to address them. (Rts)
“Amateur web enthusiast. Award-winning creator. Extreme music expert. Wannabe analyst. Organizer. Hipster-friendly tv scholar. Twitter guru.”