James Coker
The FIFA World Cup is one of the most anticipated and watched sporting occasions in the world, and this year’s tournament in Qatar is no exception. Given its global reach and popularity, the World Cup is a tempting target for a variety of cyber-threat actors, from those seeking to scam money from supporters to groups intent on disrupting the occasion for political reasons, such as nation-states and hacktivists. Sporting events are becoming more digitized, from the use of apps and websites to store tickets and sell merchandise to the growing reliance on digital technologies to run critical services used by teams and fans, and the opportunities for threat actors to strike continues to grow. Cybersecurity has become a major component of the planning for organizers of events like the World Cup. To find out more about the threats faced, and how these can be mitigated, Infosecurity caught up with Michael Smith, field CTO at Neustar Security Services and former cybersecurity advisor for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
