Cyberattacks on Olympics are inevitable, says French Prime Minister

France's Prime Minister Gabriel Attal gestures next to a welcome sign during a visit to Olympic competition pools at the Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, in the northern suburbs of Paris, ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, July 15, 2024. BERTRAND GUAY/File Photo

PARIS - Cyberattacks on the Paris Olympics are inevitable and France will do everything in its power to limit the impact they may have on the event, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said on Thursday.

"We are a target. There will be cyberattacks. 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 air and left customers without access to services such as healthcare or banking, and it also affected some operations of the organisers of the Paris Games.