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MEDIA
As sports fans get ready for the upcoming Paris Olympics, scammers are also limbering up for their own main event.
One of the biggest international sporting events in the world is coming up later this month, and while Australians are keen to catch the event both from home and Paris itself, the upcoming Summer Olympics is also a major event for scammers.
The Paris Olympics kick off on 26 July, but according to a recent report from security firm Bitdefender, scammers are already match fit ahead of the event.
Scams taking advantage of the event have been in circulation since at least May this year, mostly with the simple aim of stealing either money or personal information. And Australians are a popular target for scammers, too, up there with countries like the US, Japan, Germany, and France itself.
Two of the most popular forms of Olympics fraud are lottery and Visa-based scams. Lottery scams are nothing new, but scams using the names of popular national lotteries have been ramping up in recent weeks, as well as brands such as Coca-Cola and Microsoft.
These scams promise their victims that their email was entered into a lottery and that now that they’ve “won”, all they need to share is some personal information – names, email addresses, age, and phone numbers. These can often lead to further scam attempts using those details.
“We urge consumers to be aware that these campaigns might be part of a bigger plan, with scammers potentially bombarding inboxes with poorly and more ‘obvious’ scam attempts to verify the validity of their email database and give potential victims a sense of security and self-confidence that they would never fall for such a poorly fashioned email scam,” Bitdefender said in a statement.
Visa scams, on the other hand, offer victims the chance to win a ticket to the Olympics, awarded by the popular credit card provider. These are currently particularly prominent in Brazil, with victims urged to share their CPF number – the equivalent of a tax file number – in order to be in the running to win.
However, a wide range of scams are taking advantage of Olympics fever, with phishing scams, fake websites and apps, and counterfeit ticket scams all being observed in the lead-up to the Games.
Alina Bizga, security analyst at Bitdefender, said big events like the Olympics are a challenge for cyber security defenders.
“The Paris Olympics presents a unique set of cyber security challenges that require a coordinated and comprehensive approach from both the Olympic Committee and the host country, which need to share in the responsibility of ensuring the digital safety of athletes, spectators, and officials,” Bizga said.
“The International Olympic Committee, alongside the French government, has the formidable task of setting comprehensive cyber security standards and frameworks that all stakeholders must stick to, including policies for data protection, incident response, and securing critical infrastructure such as transportation, energy, and communication networks.”
As always, if you feel you’ve been a victim of, or have been targeted by, an Olympics-based scam, report it to the National Anti-Scam Centre.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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