Football Streaming

Football fans accessing free streams of top matches are putting their personal privacy at risk, a study has claimed.

15:54 26 May 2017

A recent study has warned against streaming top football matches saying that it puts users at great risk. 

 

Pirate sites rely heavily on advertising but with few reputable brands willing to attach their name to illegal distributions, sites are using malicious ads to pull in profits.

 

Researchers found that up to 50per cent of such ads have planted malicious software on users’ machine through various deceptive techniques such as asking users to install browser plug-ins in order to watch a free stream.

 

Lead researcher Zubair Rafique, said: "[To watch the stream] you have to install the extension, and once the user installs the extensions, it can infect any website the user is visiting,"

 

"So, if a person installs an extension to watch a stream, and then visits a site like BBC.com, this extension can actually change the contents of BBC.com as it appears in the user's browser so that it includes malicious links and advertising.