The risk of a cyber-attack is the “main worry” for broadcasters staging the Eurovision song contest on behalf of war-torn Ukraine, a BBC executive has said. Experts from the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre have been drafted in to help thwart any attempts by pro-Russian hackers to sabotage the competition’s public vote on Saturday.
The UK’s BBC director of unscripted programs, said there was no specific intelligence about an attack but that there were “so many contingency plans” in place if it happened. She said: “I don’t want to say we’re pretty attack-proof but we’ve done everything we can to make sure the event is as secure as possible so people don’t have to worry about that.” Caution from this author, never claim to be “pretty attack-proof.” She added, the contest would have had high security in any event but the war in Ukraine meant “we have had to up it as much as we possibly can.” “Cyber-attacks are the main worry because they’re becoming more and more frequent. Most companies seem to have been hacked,” she said. “We’re very conscious that we are open to a cyber-attack but everything we’ve done I think mitigates that.”
The UK is hosting Eurovision for the first time in 25 years after Ukraine, which won last year’s competition, was unable to stage the event because of the Russian invasion. The BBC is producing the two semi-finals and grand final for a global television audience of more than 160 million people.
Organizers are especially alert to a possible cyber-attack after Italian police thwarted attempts by pro-Russian hackers to disrupt last year’s event in Turin. The hackers targeted performances by Kalush Orchestra, the Ukrainian act that won the contest.
In 2019, the online stream of the Eurovision semi-finals in Israel was hacked to show warnings of a missile strike and images of blasts in the host city, Tel Aviv. The government blamed Hamas.
The BBC said it was the first time in its history that it had produced two such big events, the UK’s king’s coronation and Eurovision, in the same week. She said security for both was tighter than for any previous national occasions in her television career.
“If there is an incident, there is an incident, but I think if it happened, it happened because there was nothing we could do about it,” she emphasized. The BBC has worked with 36 other national broadcasters to produce a spectacle that it hopes will appeal to a worldwide television audience as well as to new viewers in the UK.
The BBC said Norton, whose droll commentary is enjoyed every year by UK viewers, would mention the war in Ukraine but only to explain why the contest was being hosted in Liverpool. Viewers can expect new twists on old Eurovision traditions such as the flag parade for Saturday night’s grand finale.
BBC said: “If you thought you knew Eurovision, think again, because we’re taking everything up a notch. A year since it broke out, the conflict in Ukraine has changed the world, and the Guardian has covered every minute of it. BBC reporters on the ground have endured personal risk to produce more than 5,000 articles, films and podcasts. Its live blog has been expertly updated continuously and comprehensively since the outbreak of Europe’s biggest war since 1945. We know it’s crucial that we stay until the end - and beyond. There is no substitute for being there, as we did during the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the first Russo-Ukrainian conflict in 2014. We have an illustrious, 200-year history of reporting throughout Europe in times of upheaval, peace and everything in between. We won’t let up now. Will you make a difference and support us too?”
Source: Risk of cyber-attack is main Eurovision worry, says BBC executive | Eurovision 2023 | The Guardian
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