Olympics-themed data-stealing apps and fraudulent social media accounts carrying phishing schemes are among the risks to non-participants at home and abroad for this year’s Games, according to the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Proofpoint.
This is likely to be the most digitally enabled Olympic Games in history, but that presents real opportunities for attackers as well as for the viewing public, the security firm warned.
Those looking to interact digitally with brand sponsors and the games themselves need to be extremely cautious about the information they provide and the permissions they accept.
“For people who are enjoying the Rio Games remotely, via TV and online, computer viruses should be more of a concern than Zika virus,” Devin Redmond, general manager, Proofpoint Social Media Protection, said.
Proofpoint’s analysis of more than 1,300 Olympics-related social media accounts and thousands of mobile apps turned up a variety of fraud and malicious intent situations seeking to capitalize on worldwide interest.
“Social media allows all of us to feel like we’re right there at the Games, but it’s important to look out for social media risks,” Ray Kruck, vice president of marketing and business development, Proofpoint Social Media Protection, explained.
Malware delivered via social media is not limited to desktop computers.
“Three weeks ago, we detected a malicious Android install kit posted to Olympics-related Facebook pages. A week ago, we detected four new instances of this kit, which can potentially take over Android devices and steal sensitive information,” a Proofpoint blog disclosed.
Proofpoint’s findings included the following:
- Some 82% were impostor accounts, with misleading use of Olympic or sponsor brand elements. Of these, 15% were fraudulent with many featuring illegal live streaming, phishing or fake ticket sales. They had more than 400,000 subscribers or followers collectively.
- Cybercriminals tried to defraud victims through targeted attacks on legitimate webpages as well. In one example, attackers emulated a major airline’s Twitter account and tweeted malicious links to an Olympics sponsor. These links delivered malware designed to trick users into sharing login credentials, credit card information and other sensitive data.
- Mobile apps are also potential targets for threat actors. Some 4,000-plus Android apps and 500-plus iOS apps related to the Olympics exhibited risky or malicious behaviors. One notable app offered updates but actually contained code that could take over social media accounts, read data from any device to which users connect their phones and send data to third-party ad networks.
- Potentially malicious content, including profanity, pornography, trademark violations and spam, increased by 60%.
Based on previous observations from the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, Proofpoint expected negative content related to the games to increase by another 40% by the start of the games.
Proofpoint cautioned individuals should only engage with verified social media pages and use official mobile apps linked from a brand’s official website; only purchase event tickets from the official Olympics site; and avoid free-streaming, “too good to be true” offers and unofficial mobile apps.
The security firm also recommended brands automate content moderation to deal with the increase in content volume and potentially offensive or malicious content, use a discovery tool to find and help take down fraudulent social media accounts and mobile apps, install a social media protection tool to mitigate account hacks, use strong passwords, adopt two-factor authentication and limit the number of connected apps that can publish to your pages.
Each day Proofpoint detects 600 plus million emails, hundreds of millions of social media posts, billions of URLs and IP addresses and more than 150 million unique malware samples. Proofpoint customers comprise more than 50% of the Fortune 100, including the top five U.S. banks and three of the top five U.S. retailers.
