Security News > 2022 > February > FBI: Use a Burner Phone at the Olympics

Use a burner phone if you're traveling to the Olympics, the FBI warned on Tuesday, lest you come home with a nasty case of malware and/or snatched personal data.

The FBI didn't mention specific threats, per se, but its alert warned those traveling to the February 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and March 2022 Paralympics that we've seen this all before with the Olympics, where "Malicious cyber actors could use a broad range of cyber activities to disrupt these events."

The same day the FBI released a warning about that earlier threat, in July 2021, the personal data of volunteers and ticket purchasers for the Tokyo Olympics was leaked online.

With regards to packing a burner phone and leaving your personal phone at home, the FBI warned of potential threats associated with mobile apps developed by untrusted vendors.

"The FBI urges all athletes to keep their personal cell phone at home and use a temporary phone while attending the events," CISA said.

The FBI alert follows a similar cybersecurity warning from the Citizen Lab cybersecurity group, which last month warned that MY2022 - an app mandated for use by all attendees of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games - has a "Simple but devastating" flaw wherein encryption protecting users' voice audio and file transfers "Can be trivially sidestepped."

News URL

https://threatpost.com/fbi-burner-phone-olympics-beijing/178153/