Symantec Corp. is showing the red card to all scammers and hackers on the web looking to profit from heightened interest relating to the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup. Their mission to monitor malicious activity on the web relating to this massive sporting event kicks off today.
 
The company has set up a dedicated website on which it will make data, commentary, safety tips and useful links available to global football fans surfing the web for news, tickets and information about the tournament.
 
According to Paul Wood, senior analyst at Symantec Hosted Services, the tournament attracts the attention of over a billion soccer fans worldwide, and is becoming a theme for cybercriminals. “Historically, any large-scale sporting event has shown an increase in all kinds of cyberthreats,” said Wood. “Phishing attacks increased by 66 percent during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The fact that two undersea communications cables landed on South African shores last July will exacerbate the threat levels; history also shows that malicious activity increases in a country after new bandwidth is made available.”
 
Symantec has already beefed up its network sensors in South- and Southern Africa to monitor traffic and provide information to people who wish to secure their networks against further threats. “As an example, two of our configured partners in Africa have submitted unique malicious files that have not been seen elsewhere by Symantec,” said Wood.
 
A great deal of the malicious activity will be rehashed versions of so-called 419 scams, spam and phishing attacks which will be adapted to a 2010 World Cup theme. “The rule is, if something looks too good to be true, then it’s likely to be a scam,” said Gordon Love, Africa regional director for Symantec. “Also, in all cases these days a cybercriminal is looking to steal a user’s personal information including identity details, bank account numbers, passwords and credit card numbers, [enabling them] to steal money from a user. The 2010 Net Threat site will aim to tell people how they can protect themselves against such attacks.”