Olympics’s cyber team braces for onslaught from hackers

Organisers of the Paris Summer Olympics expect a flurry of cyberattacks, and with good reason. Russia is shut out of the Games; geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and the South China Sea are running high; cybercriminals continue to bombard computer networks with hacking attempts.

A collection of government, private-sector and Olympic cybersecurity specialists have spent months preparing. The government’s agency, ANSSI, has identified 500 companies, organisations and facilities critical to the functioning of the Games, including local governments and operators in various sectors. They also have US allies alongside them.

But experts still worry that non-traditional targets — companies or organisations with less-scrutinised protections — will also be in hackers’ sights.


Jeremy Couture, who runs the cybersecurity operations centre, said, “It’s being able to react to the worst and still deliver, and to ensure that the competitions will still go on.”

OpenAI enters search market with SearchGPT

OpenAI is venturing into a territory long dominated by Google with the selective launch of SearchGPT, an AI-powered search engine with real-time access to information from the internet.

The move also places the AI giant in competition with its largest backer Microsoft’s Bing search and emerging services such as Perplexity — a search-focused AI chatbot firm backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and semiconductor giant Nvidia.

Also read: ETtech Explainer: What is SearchGPT, OpenAI’s answer to Google

OpenAI said the tool is currently in the prototype stage and is being tested with a small group of users.

WhatsApp has 100 Million monthly active users in US

Meta-owned WhatsApp has reached 100 million users in the US, said CEO Mark Zuckerberg. This is the first time the company has revealed its US figures.

It added that over 50% of WhatsApp’s users own iPhones. Compared to the US, WhatsApp has with more than 500 million monthly active users in India. Globally, the messaging service has over two billion users.