Category: Qatar

FIFA World Cup Football 2022 that is being held in Qatar is in news for being cyber attacked. According to some confirmed sources, the digital assaults were being witnessed right from the day of the opening ceremony and have increased by many folds since then.

First, the target was a third party that was looking into the decoding service. Reports are in that two servers managing decoding process were disrupted at the beginning of the event. But an efficient business continuity plan saved the event organizers from being hit hard in the day.

Second was the impersonation of the official Qatar World Cup 2022 web page. Where threat actors launched 174 malicious domains mimicking the official one and siphoned currency in foreign denomination from about 72 fans by offering them fake tickets.

With over 2.45 million visitors attending the event on a physical note and over a billion virtually, organizers are expecting the sporting event to be targeted with a humongous attack led by sophistication and complexity.

Moreover, the event organizers are expecting state funded hackers to prey on the World Cup Qatar event in the next few days as the ceremony is about to conclude in a few days of time, i.e., December 18th of this year.

The highlight in the organization of the football world cup in this year is the use of blockchain technology to track stadium tickets. However, there is nothing big to rejoice as cyber criminals have exploited certain flaws in Non-Fungible Tokens to fox fans concerned in buying tickets.

NOTE- Issue of Hayya cards has led to a chaos at most of the gaming venues as many of the enthusiasts bought their tickets that were duplicate or fake.

 

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FIFA World Cup 2022 is all set to start in a couple of days and authorities managing the event are busy taking many measures to keep the venues, players, viewers, audiences, fans and broadcasting free from cyber threats of all kinds.

All football fans who are visiting Qatar for the sporting event are being urged to download two apps: Ehteraz and Hayya. While the first one is related to COVID-19 tracking, the second one is related to venue entries, free transport and offering premium hospitality.

Till here, all seems like a cakewalk. But there is something else in the background that draws concern.

Already, some 4-6 apps with the same name and pronunciation, but with a different spelling are sprouting up on the play store and are alleged to be notoriously data stealing and espionage related malware.

Qatar Ehteraz developers are also being dragged into the scrutiny radar as their apps are seen access location, photos, videos and make unpromoted calls and have access to messages. Meaning, any hacker who takes control of the corona tracking app can do more than what is intended and who knows it can take a crime stride, anytime.

After reviewing what is being offered through Hayya and Ehteraz, the France’s data protection agency CNIL is urging fans, visitors and players to use a burner phone when in Qatar and then dump it as soon as the event culminates.

A ‘Burner Phone’ is a prepaid sim loaded mobile that is low in cost and can be discarded when a person no longer needs it. Meaning, it can be used as a tissue paper and can be thrown away after a specific point of time or when its life ends.

Thus, it will put an end to the menace where some fake and fraudulent social media apps seeking permission fraudulent start accessing certain features of a smart phone(like credentials), which was otherwise unwanted.

NOTE- This article was created not with an intention to tarnish the image of those organizing the football event, but to let know the fans and players about a possible cyber threat lurking at the event of Qatar Football World Cup 2022.

 

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Everyone visiting Qatar for the World Cup needs to install spyware on their phone.

Everyone travelling to Qatar during the football World Cup will be asked to download two apps called Ehteraz and Hayya.

Briefly, Ehteraz is an covid-19 tracking app, while Hayya is an official World Cup app used to keep track of match tickets and to access the free Metro in Qatar.

In particular, the covid-19 app Ehteraz asks for access to several rights on your mobile., like access to read, delete or change all content on the phone, as well as access to connect to WiFi and Bluetooth, override other apps and prevent the phone from switching off to sleep mode.

The Ehteraz app, which everyone over 18 coming to Qatar must download, also gets a number of other accesses such as an overview of your exact location, the ability to make direct calls via your phone and the ability to disable your screen lock.

The Hayya app does not ask for as much, but also has a number of critical aspects. Among other things, the app asks for access to share your personal information with almost no restrictions. In addition, the Hayya app provides access to determine the phone’s exact location, prevent the device from going into sleep mode, and view the phone’s network connections.

Despite what the article says, I don’t know how mandatory this actually is. I know people who visited Saudi Arabia when that country had a similarly sketchy app requirement. Some of them just didn’t bother downloading the apps, and were never asked about it at the border.

FIFA World Cup 2022, the football event that is going to be a cynosure of the entire world, will be held in Qatar this year and authorities and organizers are taking all precautions to bolster the Cybersecurity posture for the entire event.

Hotel bookings, ticketing systems, restaurant bookings will probably be the first target for hackers and so cyber security experts are taking all precautions to secure the personal data of travelers, players, event managers, organizers and such.

Usually cyber criminals use phishing, and social engineering attacks to steal personal and financial stuff. And those holding the FIFA games in the Arab country are concerned that the event might become a soft target to such hackers as all such information can be sold at a high price point on the dark web.

So attendees and those watching the event online are being asked to safeguard their defense-line against such malicious attacks by keeping their IT infrastructure guarded from digital attacks, be aware of online scams and open no suspicious emails that boost to sell tickets at discounted prices and offer major discounts of sporting goods.

To curtail all such cyber threats, Interpol held an online meeting with the event organizers in Qatar- all as a part of Project Stadia, a government funded project to look into the security activities of major sporting event.

Coming to the physical security arrangements, Turkey, France and UK will send troops around 3000 military personnel from each nation to defend the event from any kind of airborne threats such as drone attacks. Maritime security forces from UK will supervise the anti-terrorist activities and protecting the participants, referees and supporting staff.

More details will be updated shortly!

NOTE- FIFA the Men’s Football Championship will be held in between November 21st 2022 to December 18th, 2022. 32 teams will take part in the event and the football tournaments will be hosted in about 8 cities.

 

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