An addition to the problems surrounding the Sochi Olympics—NBC has discovered that Games’ participants and spectators will most likely get hacked instantly upon arrival to Russia.
Aside from the threat of hacking, the State Department warns visitors that there should be no expectation of privacy anywhere in the nation—even in hotel rooms.
The network’s Richard Engel and Kyle Wilhoit, a top threat researcher at Trend Micro, recently performed a security experiment. Equipped with two laptops chalk full of made up sensitive and very attractive information, Engel and Wilhoit showed up at the Sochi Olympics. “It took hackers less than one minute to pounce,” Engel said. Within a day, both computers had been hacked and the data had been stolen.
Another experiment the two carried out involved browsing the web on a smartphone. Again, within minutes, the device had been compromised and malware had been uploaded.
Although a security company has been brought in to regulate security at the Games, there is such a high amount of devices, that no one can be safe from Russian cybercriminals. Unfortunately, the only way to ensure the safety of one’s devices is to leave them behind.
