Preparations for the GOP Convention were underway at the Qucken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio on July 17, 2016. Jacob Pramuk | CNBC

The Republican National Convention has had to fend off a wave of cyberattacks even before the opening gavel sounded, according to the official charged with securing the network. And many more attacks are expected this week, either from nation-states hunting for intelligence or protesters trying to disrupt the network at the convention, said Max Everett, the consulting chief information officer for the Republican National Committee. "There are a lot of folks who are going to try to poke around in any new network they find," said Everett. Republican presumptive presidential candidate Donald Trump's highly charged campaign, coupled with particularly well-funded and highly motivated groups of attackers only serves to intensify the threat, security experts said.

The convention, which opens Monday afternoon, will attract some 50,000 people plus a global audience watching from afar, providing the perfect platform and smokescreen for hack attacks, said Orlando Scott-Cowley, a strategist with cybersecurity firm Mimecast. A successful attack could impact physical security on the ground, for example, by taking connected security scanners offline. It could also affect online activity, for example, by hijacking the livestream and derailing the GOP's message. The Secret Service has designated the conventions "national special security events" and has its work cut out, said Scott-Cowley. The professionalization of hacking has given rise to the most sophisticated and technologically well-armed adversaries authorities have ever faced. The convention staff will have 600 to 700 people on its network, and some of them will bring in their own personal devices, which will complicate the cybersecurity challenge, said Everett.

There are a lot of folks who are going to try to poke around in any new network they find. Max Everett RNC consulting chief information officer

He has spent the past year visiting Cleveland in preparation for the challenge — this is his fourth convention — and will have an onsite IT team of up to 70 people. They are using Microsoft and ForeScout software to monitor the network in real time, working with AT&T and Cisco on securing external access to the network and a firm called Dark Cubed to share real-time threat information among the firms trying to defend against cyberattacks. "The unique things we're seeing are the typical spearphishing attacks, with people sending links in phony emails telling users they need to reset their passwords." And they're seeing "malvertising," or malware that's designed to look like an ad for people to click on on their phones. "We have not seen any specific social engineering attacks yet, but we have seen that in the past," he said. "We have spear phishing attacks with links telling people 'you have a shipment,' and things like that."