The iPad did not exist when the Beijing Olympics took place in 2008, and Facebook usage was only about 20% of what it was in 2012.
The technology and tech-based services environment changed significantly from the Games in Beijing to the event that took place in London four years later.
According to Mark Hughes, CEO of BT Security, the event had to be executed in a very different way to how it had been run in the past.
BT Security was responsible for networking at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, which Hughes described as the first truly IP-connected summer Olympics. As such, his team needed to seamlessly deliver fixed voice and video services, deal with large volumes of data traffic, and provide uninterrupted connectivity to organisers, media, athletes and game attendees.
"The infrastructure we put in place was equivalent to a medium-sized town's worth of infrastructure," said Hughes during his keynote address on the second day of RSA Europe in Amsterdam. "Failure in terms of availability of service wasn't an option."
This also meant upping their security game. During the Games, Hughes noted that his team defended against at least one hacktivist campaign every day; they were faced with 11 000 malicious requests per second and blocked 212 million malicious connection attempts.
According to Hughes, from a security perspective, one of the unexpected risks at the Games was related to bring your own device (BYOD) because they had to provide connectivity to 30 000 media professionals, each using their own devices.
BT Security was also assigned the responsibility of handling the official Web site for the Games, which was the fifth-most-visited Web site in the world at the time. "Preparation was a big part of our success," said Hughes, adding that they had several years to test and build the necessary infrastructure. While this may seem like a blessing, he noted that, over this period, so much was changing in the IT and security landscape, all of which had to be factored into their planning and security strategy.
"We spent a lot of time making sure the security elements were well designed. And also that they were well tested," he said, adding that there were nearly 200 test events undertaken prior to the actual event.
According to Hughes, if the Games taught him anything, it was that it is as much about having the right people in place who understand the network and network operations as it is about the system architecture. It was also essential for the team to be able to manage situations on the fly and in a structured way, he continued.
Sharing of intelligence was key to the success of the security infrastructure at the Games, he concluded, stressing that this collaboration allowed them to be on the same footing as their adversaries.
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