World Cup 2006: The battle between FIFA and ... hackers

FIFA believes that hackers will massively launch attacks against this year's World Cup network.

Source: WorldCup 2006 Roger Jones, Avaya's business development manager - FIFA's network partner during this year's World Cup, said the hacker will continue to repeat the familiar form of denial of service attack, albeit through the 2002 World Cup, the 2003 women's world championship and the Confederations Cup, they were all unsuccessful.

As noted by Avaya, up to now, a few hours before the opening game, there has been no "remarkable" attack. Jones said that during the preparation for the World Cup, they contracted with a number of famous white-hat hackers to test the power and defensive capabilities of the network.

Similarly, Mike Kelly, FIFA's IT solutions director, also revealed that the security team has "tested the system" in various hypothetical situations.

Kelly admits the value of the information FIFA kept for years was a good prey for hackers. But he expressed an "extremely confident" attitude that FIFA and its partners have taken all possible measures to prevent attacks.

Jones noted during the press conference that at the IT Command Center of Munich's 2006 WC there will be leading network security experts available. However, he refused to disclose the names of firms participating in this year's security link, from the provider of virus scanning to firewalls and intrusion prevention tools.

The only thing Jones announced was that the system was " significantly redesigned and very different from the technologies used in previous WCs ".

Jones said the converged IP network used during this year's World Cup offers far more benefits than separate data and audio solutions. Not only does it deploy less infrastructure, requires less manpower, saves effort, but also saves huge amounts of phone charges.

Thien Y