Italy says it has foiled Russian Olympic cyberattacks

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, speaking in Washington on Wednesday, announced that his nation’s security agencies had “foiled a series of cyberattacks” of “Russian origin.”

Tajani said the attempted attacks targeted numerous “Foreign Ministry offices, starting with Washington, and also some Winter Olympics sites, including hotels in Cortina.”

Past Olympic-related cyberattacks came in Paris in 2024, and Pyeongchang in 2018. It is widely thought that Russian actors were behind them.

Russian bans from games — both for doping infractions as well as its war of aggression in Ukraine — are seen as motivation for such acts of aggression.

British intelligence services say Russian hackers were also eyeballing attacks on Tokyo in 2021.

Russia has been excluded from this year’s event over Ukraine. However, 13 Russian and 7 Belarus athletes have been allowed to compete as neutrals alongside 3,500 global Olympians. 

Diverse Olympic protests and highly policed ‘red zones’

The northern Italian city of Milan and the neighboring Cortina d’Ampezzo region are hosting this year’s Winter Olympics between February 6 and 22.

Some 2 million visitors are expected, including 60,000 at Friday’s opening ceremonies at San Siro Stadium in Milan, which will be attended by US Vice President JD Vance among others.

Numerous protests are scheduled to take place throughout the course of the event, they will highlight issues ranging from the environmental destruction caused by the Olympic business model to Israel’s inclusion in the games despite the situation in Gaza.

Police say Milan’s city center will be declared a “red zone” closed to all pedestrian and vehicular traffic beginning on Friday.

Authorities say they have stepped up security checks at border crossings and rail stations, and that K-9 and bomb crews are conducting regular security sweeps at Olympic venues.

Additionally, snipers have been deployed across the network of tightly controlled red zone sites.

Not the ICE that Italians want at their Olympics

Controversially, a contingent of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents has also been dispatched to the event. Italian citizens and politicians have bristled at the idea that agents from the US domestic agency should be allowed to patrol their streets. Especially in light of negative headlines the agency has made with its deadly policing in Minneapolis.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi on Wednesday said US counterparts from ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) would serve solely in an advisory capacity.

“ICE does not and will never be able to carry out operational police activities on our national territory,” Piantedosi said.

He said it was entirely normal for such forces to be deployed, noting that Italy had done the same in Paris in 2024. He also called anger voiced by regional citizens and political leaders over the presence of US agents “completely unfounded.”

24-hour Olympic Operations Room in Rome will coordinate security

Beyond fending off cyber attacks, Italian authorities say some 6,000 police and 2,000 military personnel have been deployed across the region stretching from Milan to the Dolomites.

Italy’s Defense Ministry is providing hardware including hundreds of trucks as well as aircraft, drones and radar to secure the event.

Bomb experts, anti-terror outfits, snipers and skiing police will all be on site said Interior Minister Piantedosi.

Overall security for the event will be coordinated remotely, at the Rome-based International Olympic Operations Room (SOIO). The command center will run around the clock from start to finish, coordinating numerous international and national operations and police headquarters.

Nationally, this means coordination with police in the northern Italian cities of Bolzano, Milan, Sondrio, Trento, Venice and Verona. 

“Officers from foreign police forces, as well as Interpol and Europol personnel, will be present to ensure timely information-sharing and the management of ⁠any critical issues requiring international cooperation,” read a police statement.

Edited by: Jenipher Camino Gonzalez