Beware of bugs playing World Cup soccer online

[Prashanth]

The forthcoming World Cup tourney is expected to see a hefty rise in website exploits and this is seen as a greater threat than scam mails. The warning has come from none other than security company Symantec.

As per the findings, scam and phishing mails might be overtaken by the new age web exploits as the Word Cup tournament gets underway. According to ITpro.com, the World Cup in South Africa could see itself being targeted through Web 2.0 technologies such as interactive Internet web pages, which offer services like streaming media which could offer goals or background information.

With these things happening, people could find a way toward richer web media experiences, but they could also mean that the web would be more vulnerable to serious attacks.

Statistical projections from Symantec suggest that as much as 65 per cent of all vulnerabilities found in 2008 had targeted web applications, such as cross-site scripting and the like. Cross-site scripting could allow attackers to place false information on a legitimate web page.

A user could believe that this is the final score of a match which is actually still going on. And, following this the users could re-sign in with a password.

The catch is that the request would never reach the web page. On the contrary, it will go to the attacker, who will have access to users' private information. It may be recalled that the European Championship in 2008 was also targeted by drive-by attacks.


Source: ciol