Winter Olympics' organizers confirm hack during opening ceremony

The Winter Olympics 2018, currently underway in PyeongChang fell prey to a cyber attack, the Olympics organizers confirmed. The hack happened during the opening ceremony. PyeongChang organizers have revealed that someone compromised services (including internet and TV) while athletes were on parade.

"We know the cause of the problem but that kind of issues occurs frequently during the Games. We decided with the IOC we are not going to reveal the source," Pyeongchang organizing committee spokesman Sung Baik-you told reporters, according to Reuters. He further added, "All issues were resolved and recovered morning."

The cyber attack crashed some of the Games' internal servers as well as the public Wi-Fi, which led to some customers being unable to print out their tickets for the games.

According to Reuters, Russia, which was not allowed to participate in the Olympics due to doping issues predicted before the event that it would be blamed for a cyber attack on the festivities. Russia's foreign ministry said, "We know that Western media are planning pseudo-investigations on the theme of 'Russian fingerprints' in hacking attacks on information resources related to the hosting of the Winter Olympics Games in the Republic of Korea."

Additionally, North Korea is also considered as a suspect in the cyber attack. The Winter Games are being staged only 80km (50 miles) from the border with North Korea, which is technically still at war with the South since their 1950-1953 war ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty. The controversial country was also blamed by the US for the WannaCry hacks which happened last year.