The Paris Games captivated millions, shining a spotlight on established heroes and emerging stars alike. From world-renowned athletes like Simone Biles, Tom Daley, and French favorite Teddy Riner, to the Turkish marksman Yusuf Dikec and pommel horse Clarke Kent, Stephen Nedoroscik won hearts and minds in stadiums and social media screens alike. While the Olympics showcased excellence and evolution of human endeavor, it also created a huge stage for cyberattacks and digital impersonations.
Here, we’ll recap on some central cyberthreat stories before, during, and after the games. Learning more about the kinds of phishing attacks and AI scams surrounding high-profile athletes helps brands learn what to expect themselves. These insights deliver the tools to tackle commercial threats facing businesses and business leaders.
Charity impersonation fraud targets Olympic fencer
Fencing must be one of the most compelling and flashy Olympic sports, and charity one of the most moral pursuits. However, cyberscammers stop at nothing to launch their attacks. Unfortunately, Hong Kong fencer Vivian Kong Man-wai fell victim to an online impersonation during the Paris Olympics, after winning the gold medal in Women’s Individual Epee. Kong faced cyberattacks not long after starting a charity fund worth six million dollars to support young athletes.
However, reports show that scammers struck against the charity announcement. Cyberattackers created fake websites, fake payment accounts, and deceptive Facebook campaigns to lure fans and wellwishers into donating money to cybercrime rather than philanthropy. There’s no low that scammers won’t stoop to, and in fact, they frequently target the charity sector. As the NYT reported, phishing campaigns also impersonated the MacKenzie Scott-Bezos Foundation, hijacking any high-profile causes to trick their targets. These attacks, and the scale and complexity of their digital infrastructure, show that businesses and organizations must take care online, as anywhere that money and influence collect, scammers follow.
Olympics has fallen
As well as targeting specific athletes, bad actors also target the games itself and the Olympic committee with complex campaigns. It seems that several ads titled “Olympics Has Fallen” appeared in the runup to the event, discouraging the organization and the location of the games. These ads featured celebrity impersonations, including deepfakes of Tom Cruise and voice clones of Elon Musk. They also claimed to be produced by various mainstream studios like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Scammers distributed these far-fetched videos on Telegram and other social media channels, mentioning the Olympics organizers by name. They also threatened to create mirror sites across Britain, France, Germany, and other countries to keep their content from being taken down.
Scams and impersonations like these may seem farcical, but they expose the inner workings of a modern scam. AI impersonations of high-profile VIPs and Executives, nefarious financial and political aims, social media distribution, and takedown evasion techniques should all tell businesses they must prepare for the next spoofing scam that heads their way.
How to prevent impersonation scams and VIP attacks
These stories show that scammers leverage identity and acclaim to target their AI-powered impersonation scams. Launching complex deepfake attacks, fake websites, and social media deception campaigns timed to perfection helps them twist reputations to extort innocent online traffic for financial gain. To combat these attacks and protect their VIPs and business leaders, brands must think like a scammer. Fortunately, the right technological solutions help them do just that.
VIP and Executive Protection focuses on safeguarding high-profile individuals by putting their identity first. The approach involves gathering crucial information about these individuals to craft monitoring solutions across all relevant threat channels. Built by experts with extensive backgrounds in corporate risk protection, the solution is adept at handling modern, sophisticated threats, similar to those observed during major events like the Olympics.
The system leverages advanced technology and human expertise to detect and neutralize potential risks before they escalate. Crucially, it also incorporates facial recognition technology, as well as threat-indicating text strings. The visual image, the face of the operation, means a lot when it comes to branded identity, and that’s why so many scammers impersonate it. Whether we’re talking Olympics social media posts, company websites, or corporate emails, facial recognition can make the difference between a destructive scam and a safe online presence, making it a crucial part of EBRAND’s Digital Risk Protection platform.
Integrating AI with in-depth expertise, the solution turns digital tactics against the attackers. With the tools at hand, VIPs maintain control of their digital presence. From detection to digital takedowns and even legal action, a comprehensive approach seems the only option for such comprehensive modern threats. This proactive strategy ensures that threats are managed swiftly, reducing their impact and safeguarding the individual’s online security.
A Comprehensive solution during the Olympics and beyond
VIP and Executive Protection is essential in today’s digital landscape. It provides a robust solution to protect high-profile individuals, executives, and celebrities, extending its benefits to their teams, companies, families, and the wider online community. The solution encapsulates a VIPs top priorities when it comes to their online presence: the need to monitor, identify, and eliminate threats, ensuring a stable and secure digital landscape.
In an era of escalating cyber threats, proactive protection is not just advisable—it’s essential. VIP and Executive Protection ensures that high-profile individuals and their networks remain resilient against the dynamic landscape of digital danger.
