The 2024 Olympics Offers Plenty of Opportunity For Online Scammers
Fortinet’s Threat Intelligence Report covering the Paris Olympics provides some very detailed coverage of how threat actors are taking advantage of individuals and organizations who have their attention pointing directly toward Paris this summer.
Fortinet estimates an 80% to 90% increase in cybercrime activity targeting French organizations in the last six months targeting French-speaking users, government agencies and businesses, and infrastructure providers.
Source: Fortinet
Part of the increase may be geopolitical since Russia and Belarus are not invited to this year’s games; Fortinet noted a spike in hacktivist activity by pro-Russian groups.
Additionally, Fortinet mentions a large number of typosquatting domains have been registered around the Olympics using variations on the name, including:
- oympics[.]com
- olmpics[.]com
- olimpics[.]com
- and many others
Looking globally, there is a focus on Olympic–themed lottery scams impersonating major brands, including Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Google, the Turkish National Lottery, and the World Bank. They note the primary targets for these lottery scams being users in the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, Australia, the U.K., and Slovakia.
With so much global interest in the success and outcome of the Paris Olympics, it’s critical for individuals and organizations alike to be aware of these kinds of scams, remaining vigilant when interacting with email and the web to steer clear of anything that feels too good to be true.
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