Live sporting events increasingly targeted by cyberattacks

Organizations involved in live sporting events are being increasingly targeted in cyberattacks, with threat actors targeting troves of personal data that could be leveraged for at-scale exploitation, The Hacker News reports. Increasing cyber threats against stadium operations and sports teams should prompt appropriate network scanning and the deactivation of unneeded device ports, as well as proper IT and OT system segmentation, according to a Microsoft Cyber Signals report. Commerce vendors involved in live sports events have been urged to ensure the protection of their point-of-sale devices, while attendees have been encouraged to avoid public Wi-Fi usage for accessing sensitive information and scanning of untrusted QR codes. "Ideally, organizations and security teams could configure their systems before the event to complete testing, snapshot the system and devices, and make them readily available to IT teams to rapidly redeploy when needed. These efforts go a long way in deterring adversaries from taking advantage of poorly configured, ad hoc networks within the highly desirable, target rich environments of large sporting events," said Microsoft.