Gone are those days when you had to visit physical locations before you could wager. Technology has brought a lot of change in this sector, allowing bettors to wager from anywhere at any time. But with these advancements comes the challenge of ensuring online safety.

Remember, we are in a time when customer data has become the new gold, and what better way to find it than by using online platforms? Everyone, including cybercriminals, is eyeing customer data. And since the online sports betting sector is growing significantly, it has become a prime target for malicious individuals. Reading this article, you will learn a lot about why online safety matters and other important details.

Important Statistics For You

It’s not surprising to see affiliate companies like Betting777 use metrics like security to rank sportsbooks. Studies show that close to four in ten online sports bettors have encountered attacks, especially those related to account takeover. In 2023 alone, more than 50% of sports wagering platforms suffered online security issues. As if that were not enough, Enzoic claims that this industry loses about $1 billion annually to cyberattacks.

The numbers seem to be rising, needing both players and sportsbooks to be more resilient. Can you imagine the pain of spending more than $4.88 billion as a sportsbook to recover from a cyberattack that you could have avoided? As years go by, these costs could actually increase according to approximations by different organizations like IBM.

Beyond just financial losses, cyberattacks can also affect your brand reputation. No one wants to participate in an insecure environment that could compromise their data. And given that the sports betting industry has become extremely competitive, you might lose customers to competitors just because your platform was perceived as insecure. Clearly, online security is not something to ignore.

What Are The Common Attacks In This Industry?

Social engineering attacks like phishing and smishing have become very common in sports betting. The attackers may create an email resembling a reputable betting company and use it to ask users for account information, payment details or even personal data. Once you provide the data, that’s it – your funds can be stolen, or, in a worst-case scenario, the entire account may be hijacked.

Distributed denial of service attacks are also popular in this sector. During these attacks, criminals flood betting sites with traffic, crashing the servers. They then infiltrate the system to illegally access and steal information and funds or even slow down the platform’s ability to update real-time events as the game unfolds.

Of course, we can never fail to mention the role of ignorant employees with almost zero knowledge about cybersecurity best practices. Such workers can pose a great threat to the company. As much as you may try to block traditional cyberattacks, paying attention to illegal activity like money laundering can really come in handy. Surprisingly, a recent United Nations report highlighted that up to about $140 billion is laundered annually through sports wagering.

How Can You Avoid These Attacks?

The Power of MFA

As simple as it may sound, multi-factor authentication is quite magical. In fact, do you actually know that it can minimize exposure to up to 99.9% of automated attacks and 96% of phishing attacks? This infrastructure works by adding an extra layer of security so that even if the first password is hacked, the second one prevents further harm.

According to Jump Cloud, about 87% of companies with more than 10,000 employees are already using it. And sadly, only about 46% of small businesses use it. This presents a huge gap, and sportsbooks that adopt MFA could position themselves as security-conscious and encourage more players to sign up for their platforms.

Artificial Intelligence Is Also Making Waves

AI is known for its robust computational ability to derive critical real-time insights. Let’s assume a huge Premier League match is happening, and millions of fans are flocking to your platform to either place bets or monitor how odds are changing. And as that happens, there are one or two malicious persons trying to open a fake account or any related activity. With millions of fans wagering, detecting such malicious activities in real time might not be humanly possible.

But with AI, that is possible. The technology gathers large amounts of data and uses sophisticated algorithms to identify any malicious activities, preventing the consequences of potential attacks. Even when compared to traditional fraud detection methods, AI still remains unmatched. Traditional methods are rule-based, which is a limitation, especially if the fraud has evolved.

Plus, besides preventing fraud losses, AI can reduce costs spent on extensive manual review teams. By simply learning from historical data and adding feedback from investigators, this technology easily adapts even to new fraud techniques.

As you can see, online security is not something you want to ignore. The sports betting sector is really growing, attracting the attention of cybercriminals. So, you want to take advantage of every possible means to ensure your platforms are as safe as possible, and for bettors, the bookmark must actually be reputable.

Thankfully, amid the growing number of cyberattacks, tech improvements have made it possible to stay ahead. MFA and AI, for instance, can really help minimize the impact of most attacks, ensuring a safe and secure betting environment.

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