So naturally, you can expect hackers to try to destroy everything.
Two reports this week shed light on the degree to which cyberattacks are piggybacking off the event.
- Security researchers identified 16,000 scam domains using FIFA World Cup 2022 branding, Cyberfirm Group-IB said in its report on Tuesday.
- Cybercriminals are turning to a host of scams, from selling fake tickets to fake crypto tokens, tied to the World Cup, cybersecurity firm CloudSEK said in its report Tuesday.
“The hype and popularity of the FIFA World Cup has attracted audiences from around the world. And this, in turn, attracts a variety of cybercriminals, who want to exploit the various fan followings, and the organizations that participate, to create a Fast money,” the CloudSEK report says. “The cybercriminals are motivated by financial gain, ideology or geopolitical affiliations.”
These two pieces of research capture only a portion of World Cup-related cybersecurity fears. Some of the concerns are specific to this year’s host, Qatar, a nation that has triggered growing concern from the US. it. officials in recent years over its surveillance efforts. European security regulators recently warned against downloading Qatar’s World Cup apps, saying they pose significant privacy risks.
The Group-IB and CloudSEK research follows other warnings from the cybersecurity industry.
- State-sponsored hackers who focus on gathering intelligence “view the 2022 FIFA World Cup as a target-rich environment for cyberespionage and surveillance against foreign dignitaries and business persons alike,” Record Future warned this month. The company said that it did not expect disruptive attacks on the event of hackers backed by foreign countries, however.
- Also this month, Digital Shadows called attention to some of the same kind of scams that Group-IB and CloudSEK have been doing. Kaspersky, meanwhile, called attention to fake streaming services, among other threats.
- According to Trelix’s observations, the volume of malicious emails in Arab countries rose by 100 percent in October. “It is a common practice for attackers to use the important/popular events as part of the social engineering tactics and mainly target the organizations that are related to [the] Event and more promising victim[s] for the attack,” Daksh Kapur And Language Jane Written for the company.
Nearly 3.6 billion people watched the World Cup in 2018, FIFA said. That amounted to more than half of the world’s population of people 4 and older.
Group-IB counted other numbers. Besides the 16,000 scam domains, the company says it has published 40 fake apps on the Google Play Store, more than 90 potentially compromised accounts on Qatar’s fan ID app Hayya, as well as dozens of fake social media accounts, mobile apps and advertisements.
One example: Scammers set up a fake merchandise website purporting to sell national team t-shirts, and hyped it with 130 ads on social media marketplaces. When a visitor enters their bank card details, the scammers make off with their victims’ money, and maybe even their card information.
CloudSEK also has some math. FIFA World Cup 2018 was subject to 25 million daily cyberattacks, the company said.
Financially motivated hackers do things like sell fake Haya cards that are needed to enter a stadium on game day, or offer fake “World Cup Tokens” and “World Cup Coins” and promote them as limited-edition cryptocurrencies.
- The latest idea is capitalizing on the fact that Crypto.com is an official event sponsor. Likewise, Binance has teamed up with soccer stars Cristiano Ronaldo To promote soccer themed non-fungible tokens.
Hacktivists have also been active this yearThe company said.
According to CloudSEK, “The World Cup has attracted the attention of hacktivist groups, who have taken to social media to rally their followers and allies to boycott the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup. Messages from groups such as Anonymous have also been posted on cybercrime groups To call other threat actors to support them.
Some of the hacktivists are focused on distributed denial-of-service attacks that flood a website with fake traffic, the company’s report said. These attacks are not as destructive as other types of cyberattacks, but they can be frustrating for people trying to access websites. The hacktivists say they are concerned about human rights abuses in Qatar.
China employs surveillance as part of Covid protest crackdown
As it tries to stifle Covid-related protests, the Chinese government is using its “systematic surveillance system,” Wall Street Journal Rachel Liang and Brian Spegele reported. Officials plan to use mobile phone data and other tools to track protesters and organizers.
Police in Shanghai and Beijing have checked the phones of people near protest sites to see if they have the Telegram app or virtual private networks on their phones, according to a WeChat post by Qu Weiguo, an English-language professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, our Colleague Lyric Lee reported today. Protesters have used such services to avoid censorship.
White House Press Secretary Corinne Jean-Pierre said she had no new information on whether the administration plans to help Chinese Internet users around China’s “Great Firewall.” In September, the Biden administration offered aid to Iranian protesters seeking to evade censorship and surveillance.
South Dakota state contractors and employees banned from using TikTok on government devices
The ban came in an executive order that South Dakota Gov. Crystal Noem (R) Signed Tuesday, The Associated Presss Stephen Groves reports. It comes amid renewed Washington scrutiny of the short-form video app over surveillance and propaganda concerns.
“The Chinese Communist Party uses information it collects on TikTok to manipulate the American people, and they collect data from the devices that access the platform,” Noem said in a statement. TikTok owner ByteDance did not respond to the app’s request for comment on Noem’s statement and the ban, but TikTok’s chief operating officer Vanessa Pappas Previously said that the company protects the data of the American users and that Chinese government officials do not have access to the data.
South Dakota’s ban comes as TikTok and a U.S. it. Government committee with the power to block international deals is working on a potential agreement. The military has similarly banned TikTok on troops’ government devices.
Twitter no longer enforcing Covid-19 misinformation policy, company says
Since introducing its policy against Covid misinformation in 2020, Twitter has suspended more than 11,000 accounts and removed more than 100,000 pieces of content for violating the policy. Now the company is ending the ban, in its last pivot yet by Elon Musk Acquisition of Twitter.
The shift has worried some public health experts, who say it could discourage some people from getting the vaccines. Taylor Lorenz reports. At the same time, patrolling which content violates the policy has been a challenge for Twitter, which has been criticized for censoring certain content that turned out to be true.
“However, Twitter has also struggled to police misinformation accurately and recently began labeling some factual information about Covid as misinformation and banning scientists and researchers who tried to warn the public of the long-term damage of Covid on the body,” Taylor writes. “As of last weekend, many tweets promoting anti-vaccine content and Covid misinformation remained on the platform.”
No answers on Pegasus hacking scandal as Spanish spy chief stays mute (Euronews)
NHS’s Palantir deal draws legal threat from patient groups (Bloomberg News)
UK Parliament launches inquiry into national security strategy around ransomware (The Record)
TSA Considers Using Third-Party Assessors in Coming Pipeline Regulations (NextGov)
DOD Wants Cyber Apprenticeship for Contractors, But Acquisition Regulations May Remain an Obstacle (FCW)
- Deputy National Security Advisor A newbieMaryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), Director of National Institute of Standards and Technology Laurie Locascio and other officials are speaking at the Quantum World Congress in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday.
- National Cyber Director Chris InglisCISA executive director Brandon Wales and Neuberger speak at a meeting of the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee Thursday at 3:30 p.m.
Thanks for reading. I will see you tomorrow.
