Hackers pounce on computers arriving in Sochi
Source: Pando Daily
Visitors and participants in this year’s Winter Olympics, which kick off in Sochi on Thursday, can expect a reasonable level of security for their personal data — unless of course they plan on sending an email, logging onto Facebook, or even turning on their device, if NBC is to be believed.
In a segment on last night’s Nightly News inevitably called “Russian Roulette”, Richard Engel reported that for out-of-towners it’s not a matter of if you’ll be hacked, but when. To test his theory, Engel had fake contact lists and other pieces of phony data loaded onto two brand new computers, one Mac and one PC. Within one minute, hackers had launched an attack. In less than 24 hours, they had access to the data on both machines.
Engel also dropped by a coffee shop where he began to surf the web on a brand new Android smartphone. Within minutes, a piece of malware was downloaded onto his device, Engel says, “stealing my information and giving hackers the option to tap and record my phone calls.”
... Of course, even if Kapersky Labs could protect visitors’ devices from malicious attacks, their data would still be exposed — to Russian government authorities. The State Department recently issued a warning that read, “Travelers should be aware that Russian Federal law permits the monitoring, retention and analysis of all data that traverses Russian communication networks, including internet browsing, e-mail messages, telephone calls, and fax transmissions.”
Read more: http://pando.com/2014/02/05/welcome-to-sochi-now-you-are-hacked/
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