Milan, Italy, February 13, 2026 — Organisers of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics are confident in their ability to prevent and manage potential cybersecurity threats after successfully thwarting several Russian-linked attacks in recent days. The Games’ digital defenses are already being tested, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Cybersecurity Takes Center Stage Ahead of 2026 Winter Games
Protecting the network is paramount as the Olympics become increasingly vulnerable to disruption.
- Major sporting events are prime targets for cyberattacks from various actors.
- Italian authorities recently mitigated Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks targeting Games-related websites.
- Russia has a history of targeting the Olympics, particularly in response to athlete bans.
- The Milan-Cortina 2026 network is a complex system supporting thousands of participants and over one million connections.
- Advanced security measures, including AI and zero-trust access controls, are being deployed to protect the Games.
Major sporting events, from local competitions to global spectacles like the Olympics, consistently attract the attention of malicious actors. These range from individual criminals and hacktivists to state-sponsored groups, all seeking to steal data, commit fraud, or cause widespread disruption. The high profile and geopolitical significance of the Olympic Games, however, make them particularly vulnerable targets.
Last week, Italian authorities successfully defended against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks aimed at websites associated with the Games, as well as hotels in Cortina d’Ampezzo and national embassies. While DDoS attacks don’t infiltrate systems or steal data, they overwhelm targets with traffic, rendering them inaccessible and causing operational and financial chaos. A full-scale data breach, however, would be far more calamitous.
A History of Attacks
The Olympics have been targeted by Russian-backed actors in the past. The first instance occurred in retaliation for a ban on Russian athletes competing at the 2018 Winter Olympics due to a state-sponsored doping program. More recently, the country’s exclusion from the Games following the invasion of Ukraine has fueled further concerns.
Even as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has discussed the possibility of lifting sporting sanctions in the future, many cybersecurity experts believe the risk of additional attacks remains high. “Russia’s exclusion from medal competition at the 2026 Winter Games changes the strategic context surrounding Milan Cortina,” said Justin Moore, a senior manager at Unit 42, a division of Palo Alto Networks. “With no national team participating, traditional deterrents tied to reputational or competitive consequences are reduced.”
Moore added, “Given the history of Russian-linked cyber activity targeting past Olympic Games, the risk of state-aligned cyber operations cannot be discounted, potentially drawing on previously observed disruptive or influence-based tactics.”
To counter this threat, the Italian National Cyber Security Agency (ACN) in Rome has dedicated 20 officials to Olympic cybersecurity. They are collaborating with other nations, including France and the United States (hosts of the previous and next Games), to identify and prevent malicious activity.
The Milan-Cortina 2026 network underpins virtually every activity at the Games.
A Massive, Complex Network
Milan-Cortina 2026’s technology partners, including lead integrator Deloitte and official network equipment hardware partner HPE, are playing a critical role in designing and managing the key infrastructure that both supports and protects the Games. HPE’s network connects over 40 competition and non-competition venues, supporting more than 3,000 athletes, over 11,000 media and broadcast staff, and thousands of volunteers and operations team members.
The network provides the foundation for essential infrastructure and applications, including Wi-Fi connectivity, ticketing and retail systems, broadcast connections, venue management systems, and scoring and operational software. In total, the network supports more than one million connections—without it, the Winter Olympics simply wouldn’t function.
“The Games are built on unrepeatable athletic moments that occur live in the venue, and broadcast remotely to the world,” said Giuseppe Civale, director of ICT infrastructure and venue technologies for Milan-Cortina 2026. “Our network needs the highest grade of performance and stability – from the data centre down to each access point.”
“We’re serving an unprecedented amount of high‑resolution 8K footage to more than 200 rights holders that will eventually broadcast the Games to the world. Trust has to be inherent along with scalability and security.”
The scale of Milan-Cortina 2026 presents a unique challenge. It is the most geographically dispersed Games in Olympic history, with venues spread across 22,000 square kilometres of Northern Italy. HPE argues that securing such a vast network with traditional hardware is impossible. Their modern, software-defined networking equipment allows them to embed security directly into the network’s design, automating key processes.
Zero trust access controls assume that every device is insecure until proven otherwise, and integrated artificial intelligence (AI) enables the network to act as a sensor, identifying threats and proactively enacting security policies. This layered, intelligent approach allows the Milan-Cortina 2026 team to block threats quickly and effectively, without disrupting network functionality.
“For the event organisers, not having an embarrassing incident where an attacker succeeds is very important,” explained Rami Rahim, general manager of HPE’s networking business. “But just as important is not degrading the experience of the network because you have firewalls everywhere. To achieve that you have to build a network where security is built in, where the network itself acts as a sensor to identify threats, implement policies, to block and prevent.”
