The 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games run in Rio de Janeiro in August and September 2016. The Foreign Office (FO) warns British nationals planning to travel to Brazil that levels of crime and violence are high, particularly in major cities. Visitors should be particularly vigilant before and during the festive and Carnival periods. Bank card fraud is common.
For FO guidance to visitors visit https://www.gov.uk/guidance/stay-ahead-of-the-games–2. And for the FO’s travel advice to Brazil in general visit https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/brazil/safety-and-security.
Cyber comment
Meanwhile, Thomas Fischer, Global Security Advocate at the cyber-security product company Digital Guardian, points to two impacts of a world wide followed event like the Olympics on cyber security. “The first is the actual attempts directly on the organisation and running of the event. This typically is no more different than those faced by a large organisation. The biggest threat would be a large scale denial of service both virtual and physical which would have the most impact on the event potentially crippling it and make not possible to start or broadcast the activities. In this case, the organisation needs to implement best practices like having a SOC that monitors and reacts to security events, implementing strong identity solutions to make sure only authorised users can connect and access restricted areas.
“The other aspect which can have more impact is the use of the Olympics to target the general public via phishing attacks, ticket scams and other forms of online fraud. These are typically associated to the Olympics by making the emails or web sites have the same branding. The Olympic organisation can play a part in helping protect in this domain through identifying them, reporting potential scam scenarios to the right authorities and finally notifying the public thru announcements and notifications.”
