Cybercriminals want to take gold medals from the Olympics, too

The Paris Olympics opens on Friday and cyber criminals are the best-prepared athletes. Cybersecurity firms say international sporting events are an attractive target because of their high media coverage and influence.

Fortinet has seen a significant increase in darknet activity (secret networks often used by hackers) targeting France since the second half of last year, up 80-90%. The increase continued between January and June 2024.

What are the most commonly used viruses? Currently, the information stealer Raccoon (malware used to infect systems and steal information) is most active in France, sold on the dark web, and is responsible for the majority (59%) of detections. It is able to extract browser autofill passwords, history, cookies, credit card or cryptocurrency wallet data, and other sensitive data. It is followed by Lumma (21%) and Vidar (9%).

In addition to the 338 ticket fraud websites discovered by the French Armed Forces, Fortinet’s software FortiRecon also discovered Gallic databases for sale online containing sensitive personal information, stolen credentials and compromised VPN connections that allowed unauthorized access to private networks.

The report said that for more than a year, the Olympics have been seen as a target for more and more cyber criminals “The Dark Web shows cybercriminals are ready for the Olympics. Are you ready?” (Or “The Dark Web shows cybercriminals are ready for the Olympics. Are you?”).

“We have also observed an increase in coding services used to create websites Phishing, SMS services support mass communication and phone number spoofing services. These offers may facilitate cyberattacks Phishing, This could create significant operational and security challenges during events by imitating trusted sources to spread misinformation and disrupt communications,” the experts said.

This is not new to the sport. In fact, there is a trend for such attacks to occur at major sporting events and they often have direct financial motives, including scams, online fraud or stealing data from athletes, spectators and/or sponsors. Over the past decade, the number of cyberattacks against major companies has increased from 212 million recorded at the 2012 London Olympics to 4.4 billion at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The obstacles shouldn’t stop there: “We expect hacker groups to focus on entities associated with the Paris Olympics in order to disrupt the event, targeting infrastructure, social media channels, and affiliated organizations in an effort to undermine the logistics of the event and its credibility. And to amplify their message on the global stage.”

“If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

Kaspersky shared the same idea, and the company has also seen an increase in scams surrounding the event, especially those related to the website. Phishing However, these schemes also involve companies. For example, a group of cybercriminals created a page impersonating the French bank Credit Agricole and promised to offer (fake) opportunities to win tickets for the 2024 Olympics. The hackers’ plan was to lure deceived employees of banking institutions. They could travel to the French capital, fill out forms containing personal data, including login credentials and password Your Internet Accounts.