Symantec – 2010 FIFA World Cup to Increase Level of Cyber Crime in South Africa

According to an online security news, as the 2010 FIFA World Cup is approaching and extremely poor online security infrastructure, the incidents of cyber crime in South Africa are bound to rise because it is the host country for the FIFA Cup.

The rise in cyber crime will include activities like malware distribution by creators and other malicious activities.

Addressing to a round table conference in Pretoria, Candid Wuest, Senior Threat Researcher at Symantec, said that the Trojan attacks against legitimate websites giving information about the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa would increase in near future, as reported by itweb on May 8, 2009.

Further, the hackers' objective of harvesting sensitive information of users could only be materialized when innocent users visit these infected websites which in turn install Trojan on their systems.

Another common trick used by hackers to infect the systems includes drawing users' attention by saying that they have left with last two tickets for a particular match. Security officials at Symantec have clarified that the frequency and volume of such attacks will increase in coming months.

Symantec has released the warning soon after the publication of its report based on the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. According to the report, South Africa occupies the 50th place in terms of most affected countries in the region.

However, Symantec officials commented after knowing the 50th ranking of South Africa that FIFA Local Organizing Committee (LOC) should diversified the security technology into three areas - availability, confidentiality and integrity - to defeat malicious threats and hijacks.

Citing 2008 Beijing Olympics as an example, Symantec's security experts said that cyber crime incidents such as malware distributors would increase in South Africa as well. They advised users to remain cautious while visiting any legitimate website relating to FIFA 2010. Besides, the South African administration should realize its responsibility of building the right infrastructure before the starting of the World Cup.

In addition, Symantec suggested users interested in the FIFA World Cup that they should equip themselves with the fundamentals of cybercrime, such as how malicious attacks could be executed, to protect their online personal details.

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» SPAMfighter News - 5/15/2009