RSA Europe 2013 Protests from groups such as Fathers4Justice were more of a worry to London 2012 Olympic Games organisers than computer hackers, according to the former chairman of London 2012, Lord Sebastian Coe.

He said procedures put in place before the Games to guard its IT systems – including Wi-Fi networks in stadiums as well as the main Olympics website – had worked well.

In practice, risks from pressure groups and local political campaigners proved the biggest headache but precautions against all types of threat had to be prepared, he noted.

“You have to deliver the Games within an environment of security,” Coe said in response to questions about anti-aircraft missiles on tower blocks in East London and armed police on the street. “Protection has to be proportionate but I think we got the balance right.

“The threats of disruption came from everything from Fathers4Justice through to taxi drivers, angry they weren’t allowed into the Olympic lanes. That tended to be the level of the threat. Most of the challenges weren’t terrorists, cyber or otherwise,” said Coe, who was speaking at the RSA Conference Europe 2013

Earlier at the conference, BT security chief executive officer Mark Hughes said that no cyber attack had occurred during the Games, repeating previous statements by the telco giant. BT dealt with over 212 million cyber attacks on the official website during last year’s Olympic and Para-Olympic Games.

The only serious IT threat of any note came from concerns that power to the Olympic Stadium might be disrupted.

A recent documentary from BBC Radio 4 revealed that London Olympics officials were warned hours before the opening ceremony that the event might come under cyber-attack.

The security team had already run extensive tests on the electricity supply systems supporting the games long before the threat, which, based on the discovery of “attack tools and targeting information”,

In the event nothing happened.

“There was a potential for cyber-attack even though we didn’t suffer any incursion,” Coe said during a press conference ahead of the closing keynote speech. “We had systems in place to defend against attack and this might have even acted as a deterrent.”