Hackers have targeted organisations involved with next month’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea, according to security company McAfee. Organisations involved with the games were sent emails that contained malware to allow attackers to take control over their computers.
McAfee Advanced Threat Research analysts revealed that a first wave of attacks against South Korean entities involved with the event were detected on 22nd December last year, followed by a second wave on 28th December.
Emails containing compromised Word documents, with the title ‘Organized by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Pyeongchang Winter Olympics’, were sent to the intended victims.
The second wave of attacks used a spoofed email address, ‘info@nctc.go.kr’ to appear to be from the the South Korean National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), which was conducting drills with Olympic entities at the time.
Researchers said that the malware concealed in the email potentially allows attackers to take control of a victim’s computer and install additional malware.