A Saudi "white hat" hacker group has claimed responsibility for a hack that compromised more than a dozen NFL teams' Twitter and Facebook accounts, including the two Super Bowl-bound teams, theSan Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs.
The Saudi hacking group OurMine claimed responsibility for the hacks that gave them access to the official Twitter,Facebook and Instagram accounts for 15 teams, as well as the NFL's official accounts. The hackers wrote on the various compromised accounts that OurMine was there to "Show people that everything is hackable."
The NFL confirmed the accounts were hacked on Tuesday:
"On Monday, the NFL cybersecurity department became aware of a breach of a league-related social media account," the NFL said in a statement."Targeted breaches and additional failed attempts were discovered across the league and team accounts. The NFL took immediate action and directed the teams to secure their social media accounts and prevent further unauthorized access.
Simultaneously, the league alerted the social media platform providers and, with their assistance, secured all league and club accounts. We continue to work diligently with the teams, which have resumed normal operations," the statement said.
The NFL's statement added they were working with the various social media companies and law enforcement on the hack.
The Chicago Bears' Twitter account was the first one to be compromised,according to ESPN, as it began tweeting messages supposedly authored by the hackers at OurMine. Some of the teams had their profile pictures or headers changed or deleted.
The teams hacked included: the Kansas City Chiefs, Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, Indianapolis Colts, Houston Texans, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, Cleveland Browns, Arizona Cardinals and Chicago Bears. The Instagram pages of the Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys were also hacked.
OurMine claims to be a "White Hat" hacker group, which generally means they only try to get into systems to show vulnerabilities in a company's cybersecurity.
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