Russia in Reprisal, FA boost up Cyber-security ahead of 2024

Last updated: January 24, 2024 Reading time: minutes
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England if beats Slovenia on October 5 so it will be qualified for the tournament which begins next June and that also will take the team to Russia, a bountiful source of worldwide cyber attacks.

However, The Football Association (FA) amid fears and suspects that determined hackers may look to obtain or steal confidential and key sensitive information about injuries, team selection, tactics and strategies of which could be a useful or worthy opponent to be used by gambling syndicates before matches.

According to the Guardian, (FA) will look to strengthen cyber-security training before head of the World Cup in Russia next year and as part of the plans, all advanced and latest cyber-security software is installed to FA computers and systems while staff and players have been advised not to use public Wi-Fi or over-share stuff on social media as their posting might reveal details of their locations or any other key information whilst in the country. All these prevention are made to protect against data breaches.

Simon Migliano, head of research at Top10VPN.com warned;

“Public Wi-Fi in places like hotels and cafés is so vulnerable that it doesn’t even require a sophisticated hacker group like Fancy Bear to intercept personal data transmitted over the network. It’s child’s play to harvest sensitive data or infect a user with malware,”

The worries are not baseless, given that British sportsmen and women have been beleaguered in the past by likely state-sponsored hacking group Fancy Bears.

The group has leaked data from anti-doping agency WADA in the past; apparently, it is believed that Fancy Bears are a Russian group in reprisal for the ban imposed on Russian athletes competing at the Rio Olympics.

The hacking group declared the information revealed that 160 players had failed drugs tests in 2015, with the number rising to 200 in next year.

A Fifa spokesman said;

“We can confirm the FA has sent a letter to Fifa related to the Fancy Bears attack. In its reply, Fifa has clued-up the FA in such context that Fifa remains committed to putting off security attacks in all-purpose and that with respect to the Fancy Bears attack in specific it is presently investigating the incident to ascertain whether Fifa’s infrastructure was compromised. Such investigation is still ongoing.”

Zoe Kleinman, a technology reporter at BBC News analyzes the matter;

“Many cyber attacks are supposed to start off in Russia – and receptive data about upcoming matches would certainly be valuable as it could then be used to place bets on assorted outcomes.

Once a hacker has access to a Wi-Fi router they can spy on any of the data being shared on other devices that are connected to it. They can also install a digital back door to guarantee re-entry should their access be blocked.

It would also be easy to spoof a free Wi-Fi hotspot so that the user might think they were logging on via an official platform but what they would actually be doing is notching up their entire device to a scammer.

Messaging apps such as Whatsapp and Signal use end-to-end encryption, which means messages, cannot be read if they are intercepted – the players will no doubt be encouraged to communicate using the most secure possible platforms.”

 

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