Gold medals and the baby-deforming Zika virus won’t be the only things making headlines at the forthcoming summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, with security experts warning cyber criminals will be targeting athletes, officials, tourists and even fans watching at home alike during the 16-day event.

According to Symantec Corp. Senior Vice President Samir Kapuria, the Olympics have become a beacon for cyber criminals, as the great deal of money spent on the event is a natural attraction to them.

Computerworld reports that during past major sporting events, hackers have come up with fake ticketing and betting services to commit fraud on unsuspecting users, while also using phishing emails and social media posts to spread malware.

Brazil itself is also said to be a global hotspot for cybercrime, particularly banking fraud, which can range from ATM skimmers to trojans that hijack online banking details and even grab data from point of sale terminals.

“We suspect the level of attacks will rise during the Games,” Avast Threat Intelligence Manager Michal Salat told CNBC. “We’re quite sure there will be phishing attacks on visitors. Ultimately, it’s all about money.”

Avast predicts that attempted attacks on the Rio Olympics will be quadruple the number organized face at the 2012 London Olympics, and that number was remarkable in itself: 165 million attempts.

Despite the fact the games have yet to start, phishing scams have already begun. Digital Guardian security researcher Thomas Fischer tells PCWorld that people have been targeted by emails pretending to come from the International Olympics Committee inviting recipients to enter a lottery to win flights and tickets to the games; once a user clicks through on an attachment, they usually end up downloading ransomware instead.

Hacktivists

The Olympic games may also be targeted by hacktivists who could use denial-of-service attacks on prominent websites, defacement of websites or dox athletes or officials during the games, be it for a political cause or simply because they can.

The games themselves could also be hijacked or disrupted, with NBR noting that many of the support services from event management through to broadcasting rely on cloud-based services, which while more secure than physical servers still present a tempting target.

Even ISIS is mentioned as an organization that may wish to target the games through cyber interference.

That nefarious activity will occur during the games is a given, only time will tell as to what extent.

The Rio Olympics run from August 5 through to August 21.

Image credit: equinoxefr/Flickr/CC by 2.0