How to Keep Blitzing Cybercriminals Out of Your Pocket this Fantasy Football Season
Fall is a busy time for sports fans with the new football season kicking off. Unfortunately it’s also a busy time for cybercriminals ever on the lookout for the easiest way to make a fast buck.
One rule of thumb that always holds true is that wherever there are Internet users, there will be cyber crooks trying to rip them off. It’s why Trend Micro warned last week about the growing threat of ticketing fraud.
Fans should be equally cautious when taking part in their favorite fantasy football leagues this season.
Illegal interceptions
Fantasy football has grown into a multi-billion dollar business. Who would have thought that a simple concept in which sports fans virtually “manage” a group of real players selected from NFL teams would become a national phenomenon?
The Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) estimates that nearly 57 million North Americans are signed up to take part in various fantasy sports this season – a staggering 40 percent increase over 2014. In doing so, they’re likely to spend an average of $465 per year, up from just $95 in 2012.
It’s not hard to see why cybercriminals are looking to get in on the act and leverage this huge interest for their own ends. Most notably they have an opportunity to intercept the two-way communication between fan and fantasy sports provider – grabbing financial and personal information that can then be sold on the cybercrime underground and used to commit identity theft and/or drain bank accounts.
Defending against phishing email and malware
The more leagues you’re in, the greater the odds that you’ll be attacked. And there’s so much communication going back and forth – newsletters, player stats, information on up and coming NFL stars, and so on – that fantasy football team managers may become conditioned to opening email that appears related to a fantasy league without thinking, making them vulnerable to phishing email or malware.
Phishing email is designed to look like it has been sent to you by your fantasy football league provider, but is fraudulent and crafted to steal your personal and financial information.
Other fake emails could contain malicious links or even URLs for legitimate sites that have been hacked. These so-called drive-by-downloads only require you to visit a hacked web page to get infected. Once infected, the malware could steal your personal info, or even remotely control your computer.
Cybercriminals are also more than capable of cracking simple account passwords to get at your sensitive financial information. Sometimes people make the bad guys’ job even easier by using the same passwords across accounts, so that if just one of these online accounts is hacked, the security of all the others is compromised.
Tips for tackling the problem
Here are a few tips for building a rock-hard defense to help you avoid trouble this fantasy football season:
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Good luck with your drive to become a fantasy football champion!
from Trend Micro Simply Security http://ift.tt/1NnwpLt
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