A group of hackers turned to the NFL to “show people that everything is hackable.”
According to NBC News, the Sunday and Monday hackings of NFL social media accounts were claimed by the OurMine hacker group, a Dubai-based organization that says it has good intentions and sells cybersecurity services.
"As soon as we were made aware of the issue, we locked the compromised accounts and are working closely with our partners at the NFL to restore them,” Twitter said of the incident, according to BBC News.
About 15 teams had their Twitter accounts hacked, including the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers, who will face off in Sunday's Super Bowl in Miami. The hackers posted several messages saying, “Hi, we’re Back (OurMine). We are here to Show people that everything is hackable,” and provided contact information to “improve security.”
NBC News reached out to an email account appearing to belong to OurMine, receiving a response that said that the targets were random. OurMine also said it had stopped its work in 2017 but was making a return.
The OurMine Twitter account was suspended Monday, while the organization told the BBC that it offered its services to the NFL prior to the attack but didn’t receive a response. OurMine has hacked a number of high-profile Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts in the past.
