VB2018 paper: Who wasn’t responsible for Olympic Destroyer?

It may be hard to believe, but it was only eight months ago that the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games were

targeted

by malware named Olympic Destroyer. Though

not the first time

the Olympic Games had been the target of malware, Olympic Destroyer, as its name suggests, did appear to be destructive in nature.

Cisco Talos

researchers Paul Rascagnères and Warren Mercer were among the first to

write about

the malware. They also

presented

a detailed paper about it at VB2018 in Montreal.

In their paper, as well as in their presentation in Montreal, they analysed the malware and looked at one particular issue that made Olympic Destroyer noteworthy: attribution. The malware appeared to contain various false flags that could (and in some cases

did

) confuse attribution. The authors warn that attribution isn’t as easy as it often seems.

Different media outlets published conflicting stories in relation to attribution.

We have now published Paul and Warren’s paper in both

HTML

and

PDF

format. We have also uploaded the video of their presentation to our

YouTube

channel.