FEATURES OF CYBER ATTACKS ON FOOTBALL CLUBS OF THE COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD

Abstract

International and national sports organizations, sports clubs, stadiums, athletes, as well as fans and spectators are increasingly affected by hacker attacks. The author chose football clubs for research, because football is the «№ 1 sport” in most European countries and has millions of fans and fans. With the help of structural-functional, comparative, behavioral methods, the peculiarities of cyberattacks on clubs and their consequences are considered. The group theory method made it possible to interpret hacker activity as a struggle for political power, pressure, influence on political decision-making. It was revealed that the life support systems of the population of the cities where important matches take place are subjected to cyber attacks. It was established that the Russian Federation and China support cyber terrorism at the state level. Various Russian hacker groups act in the interests of the Russian government. Therefore, it is quite difficult to make an evidentiary judgment in these cases. Cyber attacks are increasingly the cause of deterioration of bilateral relations between countries. At the same time, football clubs have introduced an extended protocol and an action plan in case of detection of cyber threats. Controlling bodies of countries are imposing fines on clubs for paying ransom to hackers and providing state authorities with unreliable information about the extent of the interference. Attention is drawn to the political subtext of hacker attacks on Ukrainian football clubs during the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. The reason for this is their clear statesmanship position, defense of the national interests of Ukraine. Club websites and match broadcasts suffer from illegal interference. So, in June 2022, during the Wales-Ukraine World Cup 2022 playoff final, hackers replaced the broadcast of the match with footage from the Russian propaganda channel “Izvestia”. It broadcast an interview with the President of the Russian Federation V. Putin and a story about the alleged shelling of Donetsk by the Ukrainian military. All this confirms the opinion about the hybrid nature of this war and finally refutes the thesis about “sport outside of politics”.