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Scamming championship: sports-related fraud
This summer and early fall saw some major international sporting events. The delayed Euro 2020 soccer tournament was held in June and July, followed by the equally delayed Tokyo Olympics in August. Q3 2021 also featured several F1 Grand Prix races. There was no way that cybercriminals and profiteers could pass up such a golden opportunity. Fans wanting to attend events live encountered fake ticket-selling websites. Some sites made a point of stressing the tickets were “official”, despite charging potential victims several times the real price of a ticket, and some just took the money and disappeared.
Scammers also laid traps for those preferring to watch the action online from the comfort of home. Fraudulent websites popped up offering free live broadcasts. On clicking the link, however, the user was asked to pay for a subscription. If that did not deter them, their money and bank card details went straight to the scammers, with no live or any other kind of broadcast in return. This scheme has been used many times before, only instead of sporting events, victims were offered the hottest movie and TV releases.
Soccer video games always attract a large following. This success has a downside: gaming platforms get attacked by hackers, especially during major soccer events. Accordingly, the Euro 2020 championship was used by scammers as bait to hijack accounts on the major gaming portal belonging to Japanese gaming giant Konami. The cybercriminals offere ..
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