NFL Responds to Widespread Hack That Hijacked Social-Media Accounts

By Todd Spangler

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The , a week before Super Bowl LIV, was targeted by a hacking collective that temporarily commandeered social media accounts across Twitter and other platforms for the league and multiple teams.

In the attack, 15 of the NFL’s teams — including the Super Bowl-bound Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers — as well as the league itself had their Twitter, Facebook and/or Instagram accounts hacked starting Sunday, the BBC reported .

The league on Jan. 28 issued a statement responding to the incident. “On Monday, the NFL Cybersecurity department became aware of a breach of a league-related social media account. Targeted breaches and additional failed attempts were discovered across the league and team accounts,” the National Football League said in a statement.

The hacks were committed by OurMine, a Saudi Arabia-based “white hat” hacking team, per NBC News , as part of its bizarre method to promote its cybersecurity services. Many of unauthorized posts said the hack was intended to “show people that everything is hackable.” The publicity-seeking OurMine group had gone quiet for the last few years, previously engaging in high-profile attacks on targets including Netflix, HBO , Marvel, Google, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, and Vevo .

The NFL said that it worked with social media platforms to secure all league and club accounts, adding that the league and its teams “are cooperating with its social media platform providers and law enforcement.”

While the hacked NFL posts have been deleted, some of them were screen-captured by users: