More than 20% of the public WiFi networks in FIFA World Cup 2018 host cities – 7 176 of approximately 32 000 – do not use traffic encryption.
This makes them potentially unsafe for use by football fans visiting the cities, according to Kaspersky Lab research.
The results suggest that fans should take care of their personal data, especially while using open WiFi connections around the FIFA World Cup games.
Global events always result in a concentration of people connecting to networks to upload posts, stay in touch with loved ones, and share the fun with others.
However, at the same time, these networks can be used to transfer financial and other valuable information across the Internet. And it’s this information that third parties – not necessarily criminals – can intercept and use for their own purposes.
Kaspersky Lab’s findings are based on an analysis of public WiFi spots in 11 FIFA World Cup 2018 host cities, including Saransk, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Volgograd, Moscow, Ekaterinburg, Sochi, Rostov, Kaliningrad and Saint Petersburg.
The results show that so far not all wireless access points have encryption and authentication algorithms – aspects that are essential for Wi-Fi networks to remain secure. This means that hackers only need to be located near an access point to intercept network traffic and get confidential information from unwitting or unprepared users.
The three cities with the highest percentage of unreliable WiFi networks are Saint Petersburg (37%), Kaliningrad (35%), and Rostov (32%).
In contrast, the safest places were relatively small towns – including Saransk (only 10% of Wi-Fi spots are open), and Samara (17% of WiFi spots are open).
Almost two-thirds of all public WiFi networks in these locations use the WiFi Protected Access (WPA/WPA2) protocol family for traffic encryption, a protocol which is considered to be one of the most secure for WiFi use.
Kaspersky warns, however, that reliable WPA/WPA2 networks can allow brute-force and dictionary attacks, as well as key reinstallation attacks, meaning they are not absolutely secure.
“The lack of traffic encryption, coupled with large-scale events – like the FIFA World Cup – make wireless WiFi networks a target for criminals who want easy access to user data,” says Denis Legezo, senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab. “Despite about two-thirds of all access points in FIFA World Cup host cities using encryption based on the most secure WiFi Protected Access (WPA/WPA2) protocol family, even these access points can’t be considered secure if the password is visible to everyone.
“Our research shows, once again, that cybersecurity involves addressing not just certain aspects, but the entire infrastructure. FIFA World Cup 2018 has confirmed that the event itself is secure – but users should be aware that clearly its host cities’ public WiFi hotspots are often not,” he adds.
Visitors to FIFA World Cup 2018 host cities who use open WiFi networks while there, are urged to follow several simple rules to help protect their personal data:
* Whenever possible, connect via a Virtual Private Network (VPN). With a VPN, encrypted traffic is transmitted over a protected tunnel, meaning criminals won’t be able to read your data, even if they gain access to it.
* Do not trust networks that are not password-protected or have easy-to-guess or easy-to-find passwords.
* Even if a network requests a strong password, you should remain vigilant. Fraudsters can find out the network password at a coffee shop, for example, and then create a fake connection with the same password. This allows them to easily steal personal user data. You should only trust network names and passwords given to you by employees of the establishment.
* To maximise protection, turn off the WiFi connection whenever it’s not in use. This will also save battery life.
* If not 100% sure the wireless network is secure, but there’s still a need to connect to the Internet, try to limit yourself to basic user actions such as searching for information. You should refrain from entering your login details for social networks or mail services, and definitely do not perform any online banking operations or enter your bank card details anywhere. This will avoid situations where your sensitive data or passwords are intercepted and then used for malicious purposes later on.
* To avoid being a target for cybercriminals, you should enable the “always use a secure connection” (HTTPS) option in your device settings. Enabling this option is recommended when visiting any website, you think may lack the necessary protection.