World Cup tickets can be dangerous

Security experts warn of counterfeiting, phishing and FIFA's rules

Despite FIFA's tight grip on the distribution of World Cup tickets, some 8,000 have appeared listed for sale on unofficial sites and in online auctions.

FIFA has made it quite clear that tickets for the forthcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa cannot be sold, resold, donated or transferred in any way without its prior written permission. Any ticket that that has been passed on in any way will not be considered legitimate and its holder may be denied access to the stadium on match day.

Some of the unofficial tickets are on sale for thousands of pounds.

While some of these may be genuine tickets being resold by people who aren't aware of FIFA's rules or are hoping to get permission to transfer, some are bound to be counterfeit or involve scams where the tickets do not exist, according to security experts.

Brand-protection firm MarkMonitor has been tracking the illegitimate tickets since mid-February and says the number available has risen by 200 per cent since then.

“It's incredibly easy for criminals to impersonate major brands – in this case FIFA – online,” says Charlie Abrahams, European vice president of MarkMonitor.

Brand owners employ MarkMonitor to track and combat IP infringement online, usually by leaning on auction sites to de-list counterfeit products and persuading ISPs to take down sites impersonating the brands. Although his company has not been engaged by FIFA, Abrahams is keen to warn companies of the perils of bogus World Cup tickets.

“This is by no means a scientific method, but one of the first links I clicked on after a simple Google search for World Cup tickets led me to a site which my security software flagged as dangerous,” he told Computing.

The tournament is still four weeks away and Abrahams said as it gets closer he expects the incidence of associated counterfeiting and phishing to rise accordingly.

“There's bound to be a big spike in counterfeit football shirts and other paraphernalia,” he added.

According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (AWG), a consortium of industry and law enforcement bodies, the fourth quarter of 2009 saw a 4.4 per cent rise in the number of hijacked brands.

The report found that a single gang based in Eastern Europe – code-named Avalanche by security researchers because of its proclivity – is responsible for 84,000 of 127,000 phishing attacks launched in the second half of 2009.