As visitors and athletes Paris for the Summer Olympics 2024, open Wi-Fi networks with weak to no encryption pose a potential security risk.
Out of the nearly 25,000 free Wi-Fi spots in Paris, nearly 25% of the networks were found to have serious security weaknesses, such as weak or nonexistent encryption, making them vulnerable to interception, decryption, or cracking attacks.
Researchers at Kaspersky analysed 47,891 signal networks across popular locations and Olympic venues in Paris, identifying 24,766 unique Wi-Fi access points.
Additionally, almost one-in-five of the networks were found to be using WPS configuration, which is considered outdated and can easily be compromised. The configuration could potentially allow attackers to compromise the security of connected devices to steal sensitive information including Personally Identifiable Information, and banking data.
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Only six percent of the analysed networks used the latest WPA3 security protocol which is less susceptible to attacks.
“Like the sportspeople training for the summer of sport in France, cybercriminals have also prepared an unsavoury welcome for the millions of people heading for Paris hotels, fan zones and events. They might set up fake access points or compromise legitimate networks to intercept and manipulate data transfers. Open and misconfigured Wi-Fi networks are particularly attractive to criminals, as they enable the theft of passwords, credit card details, and other sensitive user data,” Amin Hasbini, Head of META research unit at Kaspersky’s GReAT (Global Research and Analysis Team) said.
Threat actors are known to target popular sporting events to run online scams. Attackers are also known to use weak online security protocols to run data theft campaigns. The collected data is often sold on the dark web, or used to launch phishing attacks.
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