Some call it football. Others call it soccer. No matter what you term the game, the effects of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the most widely-viewed sporting event across the globe, can be seen all around the world – and around the Web – after the kickoff this past Friday.

The World Cup has been stimulating bars and restaurants, taking a toll on worker productivity, and even impacting Internet usage. But, it’s also effecting your online security. Here’s what a few of our industry counterparts have been reporting –

• Websense said this past Thursday that it began tracking 80,000 spam messages containing HTML attachments with embedded JavaScript.
• Symantec has warned of a sophisticated World Cup-related malware scam, aimed at corporations in Brazil, that operates under the guise of both a PDF attachment and malicious link.
• FSecure has reported that, when comparing the first three days from the last six months, spam related to the games has doubled in volume, and they’ve seen 74 times the number of hits on World Cup-related keywords from January to June.

How can you stay safe? The malware experts at Lavasoft have released tips for what to be on the lookout for, and how to prevent becoming the target or victim of an attack. Take a look at Lavasoft’s list of the top five online risks surrounding the World Cup.