Norton by Symantec has already started seeing search terms related to this event returning a large number of poisoned links, including dozens of search terms relating to Olympics tickets, mascots, offers, and more.
Over 1500 malicious web links have been identified when searching for common Olympic related terms such as “London 2012 Olympics symbol”, “London 2012 stadium seating”, “London 2012 stadium photos” and “2012 Olympics logo simpsons”. These poisoned search results have been planted by cybercriminals to attract people to unofficial or infected websites hosting malware, often designed to steal identities and sensitive financial information.
“Norton by Symantec has found that criminals are mimicking genuine Olympic-related sites to draw victims in. People searching for these terms may well click on a link which looks genuine with true-to-life Olympic text and images, but are in fact being directed a fake site set up by scammers, used to send malicious software to their machines, often in the form of fake anti-virus programmes, or simply by sending trojans or keyloggers undetected by the user,” said Tamim Taufiq, Head of Consumer Sales MENA for Symantec.
In addition, fake Olympic ticket confirmations have been circulating aimed at tricking people into sharing their personal financial details.
“During the course of the year leading up to the big event, we to see many more Olympics-related search terms being used by cybercriminals to push rogue antivirus software. We have already found hundreds of compromised sites used in this campaign. We recommend that users stick to legitimate news sites, and keep a look out for domain names that appear to be unrelated to the news being searched for. Do not respond to any emails asking for additional bank details in order to secure 2012 Olympic tickets and never enter your personal details on a site that isn’t secured by an SSL certificate. If in doubt, contact LOCOG to confirm whether or not the correspondence is genuine.”