A hacking group from Saudi Arabia has massively compromised the social media accounts of the NFL (National Football League) and 15 of its participating teams. The hacking group OurMine is said to be behind the massive attack .
The breaches occurred in recent days and have been confirmed by multiple sources.
Which social media accounts were hacked?
- NFL (Twitter)
- Arizona Cardinals (Twitter)
- Buffalo Bills (Instagram and Facebook)
- Chicago Bears (Twitter)
- Cleveland Browns (Twitter)
- Dallas Cowboys (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram)
- Denver Broncos (Twitter)
- Green Bay Packers (Twitter)
- Houston Texans (Twitter)
- Indianapolis Colts (Twitter)
- Kansas City Chiefs (Twitter)
- New York Giants (Twitter)
- Minnesota Vikings (Instagram)
- Philadelphia Eagles (Twitter)
- San Francisco 49ers (Twitter)
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Twitter)
We don't yet know how the social media accounts were compromised. However, many of the tweets made by the OurMine hackers about the compromised accounts come from Khoros.
Khoros is a web-based service used by digital marketing and public relations professionals to manage social media accounts and measure engagement. It is usually connected to a social media account as a third-party application.
However, according to a Khoros spokesperson, the platform itself has not suffered any breaches.
“We are assisting a Khoros client with an incident related to unauthorized access to employee social media accounts,” the platform said. It did not name the client, but it is likely the NFL. “We are committed to the security of our clients and are working with them to help them resolve the situation.”
OurMine: Known for hacking social media accounts
The breaches and their connection to OurMine did not come as a surprise to security. The hacking group is known for its ability to compromise the accounts of famous people and CEOs, such as Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey or Sundar Pichai.
The group has been active since 2016. It is believed to be made up of teenage hackers from Saudi Arabia. The group has been very popular in the last two years. In September 2017, hackers stole and leaked files from the internal servers of the video hosting service Vevo.
The NFL and its teams have joined the list of celebrities, companies and executives whose social media accounts have been compromised by hackers from OurMine.
The list of victims includes the following:
- BuzzFeed (website breach)
- TechCrunch (website breach)
- Variety (website violation)
- BBC (Twitter)
- PlayStation Network (Twitter)
- Netflix (Twitter)
- Marvel Studios (Twitter)
- WWE (Twitter)
- Game of Thrones (Twitter)
- FC Barcelona (Twitter)
- Real Madrid (Twitter and YouTube)
- CNN (Facebook)
- New York Times (Twitter)
- WikiLeaks (DNS hijacking, website hacking)
- Mark Zuckerberg (Pinterest and Twitter)
- Dick Costolo (Pinterest and Twitter)
- Jack Dorsey (Vine and Twitter)
- Sundar Pichai (Quora and Twitter)
- John Hanke (Quora and Twitter)
- Zach Klein (Quora and Twitter)
- Ev Williams (Twitter)
- Marissa Mayer (Twitter)
- Jimmy Wales (Twitter)
- Daniel Ek (Twitter)
- Brendan Iribe (Twitter)
- Adam Mosseri (Twitter)
- Deadmau5 (Twitter)
- David Guetta (Twitter)
- Channing Tatum (Twitter)
- Drake (Twitter)
The list includes many other celebrities, such as Lana Del Rey, Kylie Jenner and many YouTube stars.
The OurMine hackers themselves have said that they use simple methods to gain access to their victims' social media accounts.
Most often, they use passwords found in compromised databases of credentials . If account holders continue to use the same passwords and don't protect their accounts with two-factor authentication, hackers can gain access
OurMine has also been linked to other cybercrimes. In the past, it has hacked forums and well-known companies, stolen data and sold it online.
