A Saudi hacker group has mass-defaced the social media accounts of the NFL and 11 of its teams -- the Buffalo Bills, the Chicago Bears, the Dallas Cowboys, the Denver Broncos, the Green Bay Packers, the Kansas City Chiefs, the New York Giants, the Minnesota Vikings, the Philadelphia Eagles, the San Francisco 49ers, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
All hacks were claimed by a group of hackers going by the name of OurMine. The hacks, which occurred on Super Bowl week, have been confirmed as the following:
- NFL (Twitter account)
- Buffalo Bills (Instagram and Facebook accounts)
- Chicago Bears (Twitter account)
- Dallas Cowboys (Twitter account)
- Denver Broncos (Twitter account)
- Green Bay Packers (Twitter account)
- Kansas City Chiefs (Twitter account)
- New York Giants (Twitter account)
- Minnesota Vikings (Instagram account)
- Philadelphia Eagles (Twitter account)
- San Francisco 49ers (Twitter account)
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Twitter account)
Believed to be a group of Saudi teenagers, OurMine has been active since 2016, and they've built a reputation for themselves over the years for their ability to hijack the social media accounts of high-profile celebrities and tech CEOs, such as Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, or Sundar Pichai.
Prior to today's account defacements, the OurMine crew has been dormant for more than two years, since September 2017, when they stole and leaked files from Vevo's internal servers.
The NFL and its teams now join a long list of celebrities, companies, and Silicon Valley CEOs who had their social media accounts hacked:
- BuzzFeed (website defacement)
- TechCrunch (website defacement)
- Variety (website defacement)
- BBC (Twitter account)
- Play Station Network (Twitter account)
- Netflix (Twitter account)
- Marvel Studios (Twitter account)
- WWE (Twitter account)
- Game of Thrones (Twitter account)
- FC Barcelona (Twitter account)
- Real Madrid (Twitter and YouTube accounts)