The European Cup will be watched by millions of fans across the world, however because of its immense popularity it is also an ideal platform for cybercriminals to launch attacks, and a new survey from internet security firm ESET has revealed that almost a third of IT professionals believe the tournament will put an extra burden on their company’s IT teams which they will struggle to cope with.
Commenting on the findings, Mark James, security specialist at ESET said: “The tournament is also an opportune time for cybercriminals to launch attacks via social media and email. This could be by posting malicious links via social media fan pages or through phishing emails with malicious attachments or links. These extra threats will put immense pressure on IT departments’ already overflowing workload and will create new avenues for cybercriminals to attack.”
The study, which was carried out in June 2016 at Infosecurity Europe and studied the attitudes of over 350 IT professionals, also revealed that 34 percent of respondents admitted that many company owned mobile devices which are reported lost or stolen do not get wiped immediately by IT departments. With this in mind, let’s hope fans do not accidentally lose any corporate mobile devices while watching games as there will most likely be an opportune window for criminals to access the devices and steal sensitive information.
“With so many games in the European Cup taking place immediately after work, there will be an increase in people going to pubs and bars with their workmates. This will be a security headache for IT teams as there is a high chance some employees will misplace their corporate mobile devices. IT teams should be on guard during the Euros and have a capability in place which enables them to wipe devices as soon as they are reported missing, as opposed to taking their eyes off the ball and waiting some time before wiping them. It is pretty worrying to think that many corporate devices which are reported lost or stolen, are not wiped immediately, especially considering the amount of data these devices hold today. Mobile devices are no longer just used to make calls and send texts and emails, many now have direct access to corporate networks and hold sensitive company information,” continued James.
