The U.S. government and security experts warned that foreign visitors to the Winter Olympics in Sochi "are unknowingly wading into a cyber battlefield," according to Hannah Kuchler of the FINANCIAL TIMES. Large int'l events -- packed with diplomats, business leaders and celebrities -- "have become honeypots for computer hackers, while Russia is home to some of the most feared cyber criminals in the world." In a sign of the mounting worries over the cyber threat, the U.S. government "issued guidance advising American visitors to Sochi to remove all important information from their computers and devices before they travel." They were also told to assume their communications were being monitored and that they should have “no expectation of privacy” in Russia because of the twin threat from hackers and surveillance from the state. Only last week the White House pointed the finger at Moscow after a potentially embarrassing recording of a conversation between two of its top-level diplomats about the stand-off in Ukraine was posted on YouTube. U.S.-based cyber threat intelligence company Lookingglass CEO Chris Coleman said that botnets, which send spam to infect a computer and download its data, "emerged in the area in recent weeks, targeting everything from the 4G networks for smartphones to popular hotel websites in Sochi." Coleman said, “The Russian underground is very active, especially in financial exploitation of consumers. So they have had quite a robust, bulletproof infrastructure in place with a target rich environment next door" (
FT, 2/11).
