Manchester City could do the treble tonight if they beat Inter Milan at the Atatürk Olimpiyat stadium in Turkey. It's set to be a classic encounter with millions expected to tune in to watch the huge Champions League clash.
Sadly, with so much excitement around the game, it's the perfect time for cyber thieves to try and cash in and take advantage of people trying to watch the action online for free.
Fake streaming sites are nothing new but a recent report from the experts at AVAST suggests that the UK has recently seen a whopping 39% increase in attacks related to online streaming. And things look set to get even worse tonight as football fans head online in a bid to get access to the action.
“As we know, cybercriminals capitalise on human emotions – and the desire of fans to watch their team play in the Champions League is a strong one,” said David Jursa, Malware Analysis Lead for Avast. “Unfortunately, criminals often use promises of free streaming as a lure and pepper popup ads, phishing sites, malvertising and other scams throughout a stream to get access to people’s personal data and devices.”
So, if you are hoping to watch the Champions Legaue final what do you need to be on the lookout for?
Any websites that offer football for free are likely to be dangerous. Scammers often post pages online that suggest action can be viewed without paying but in reality, they simply try and infect PCs, bombard users with adverts or try and steal personal data and credit card details.
Even when fans eventually find a free stream, they will often notice layers of popups hiding the video content. These then need to be clicked on to be removed and often contain tempting offers and advertisements which are simply phishing scams and malvertising.
So can you actually watch the game for free?
The simple answer is yes! BT has confirmed that it will be showing tonight's clash for free across a number of platforms including its app, YouTube channel and certain smart devices.
"BT Sport is making the 2023 UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League finals available for everyone in the UK to watch whether on TV, online or on mobile," the firm said.
"All three finals will be available for free at btsport.com/final, via the BT Sport app for small and large-screen devices, including PlayStation, Xbox, Samsung smart TVs, Apple TV, Android TV and Amazon Fire and on the BT Sport YouTube channel.
"The finals will also be available for anyone to watch on Virgin Media TiVo, TV360 and Stream platforms on channel 532 (HD)."
Unless you want to end up with a PC full of malware, we'd suggest sticking to BT's official platform.
