World Cup potential to cause network meltdown

Despite World Cup threats barely making a bleep on the number of global phishing attacks reported, the potential for damage to networks attributed to the event will be severe, said SurfControl.

Despite World Cup threats barely making a bleep on the number of global phishing attacks reported, the potential for damage to networks attributed to the event will be severe, said SurfControl.

In its latest Adaptive Threat Intelligence report SurfControl said phishing attacks rose from 4.5 percent in April to six percent in May.

Global phishing activities were largely financially-driven attacks timed to coincide with the end of the financial year; World Cup phishing scams barely made a bleep, the secuirty vendor said.

However, the most obvious impact to organisations during the World Cup, will be to the network said Charles Heunemann, SurfControl’s APAC general manager.

"The biggest problems organisations face was the potential interactions with untrustworthy ‘World Cup’ websites," he said. "These web sources may bring a security risk to the network or, when streaming webpages are left open ‘in the background’ on a PC."