It is no shocking news that cricket fans all over the world are gearing up for the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. Apart from the sporting venue, there is one major difference between this world cup and the previous one – cyber technology has come a long way. For example, social networking sites which enable instant exchange of information, and video streaming sites which enable live streaming of events, have now become extremely popular.
Needless to say, millions of cricket fanatic Indians, in the hope of catching their favourite demigod – Sachin Tendulkar in action, will search for sites streaming the cricket match live. Innocent users need to be aware that, unfortunately, malware authors could lure you into fishing outside your off stump. They may attempt to install what purports to be a “video codec” to begin watching the stream, but this turns out to be a mechanism to deliver malware.
Malware authors can also be found attempting to spam users on social networking sites such as Facebook. Such spammed messages could eventually be used to distribute malicious code, disguised as an application intended to provide live score feeds, post match discussions, etc. Such malware could steal the user’s personal information from his/her computer.
We aren’t dissuading users from using social networking sites or watching cricket on the Internet. Rather, we are simply advising users to exercise caution while doing so, and to keep your Anti-Virus software up-to-date. If users come across such malicious applications or sites distributing malware, please feel free to send them to K7 computing’s Threat Control Lab for further analysis.
Credits:
Images courtesy of 87pestspray.com, wikipedia.com
Lokesh Kumar
K7TCL
