NFL's Twitter Account Hacked, Wrongly Said Commissioner Died
June 07 2016 - 5:40PM
Dow Jones News
The National Football League became the latest high-profile
victim of hackers as the league's official Twitter account was
intercepted and wrongly announced the passing of NFL Commissioner
Roger Goodell.
The NFL quickly deleted the incorrect tweet and said Mr. Goodell
was "alive and well," according to Brian McCarthy, the NFL's vice
president of corporate communications.
Mr. McCarthy also confirmed that the league's account had been
hacked. "We have engaged law enforcement to look into the matter,"
Mr. McCarthy said. "We are reviewing and strengthening our
cybersecurity measures."
A Twitter representative declined to comment on the
incident.
The message followed a similar breach in recent days of the
account of Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. In Mr.
Zuckerberg's case, his Twitter and Pinterest accounts were taken
over because he reused the password "dadada," according to a person
familiar with the matter.
Mr. Zuckerberg's password had appeared last month in a database
of more than 100 million usernames and passwords stolen in 2012
from LinkedIn Corp., the person said.
The advice to not re-use passwords is particularly timely at the
moment. Beyond the LinkedIn theft, there were also recent leaks of
360 million email addresses and passwords belonging to users of
MySpace.com. Since May, the website Leakedsource.com, which sells
access to the stolen information, has added close to one billion
records to its database, a LeakedSource representative said
Monday.
"These kinds of attacks have become more common," said Liam
O'Murchu, director of Symantec Corp.'s security response team. "It
may not be the case for the NFL, but we often see the reuse of a
password is to blame."
The NFL didn't say whether it had recycled its Twitter password
or if it had been the victim of a cyberattack before. The NFL uses
its Twitter account to report league updates and news.
The fake tweet said, "We regret to inform our fans that our
commissioner, Roger Goodell, has passed away. He was 57. #RIP"
The hackers, who haven't been identified, doubled down on their
trolling once their initial posting was discovered and quickly
removed. They later messaged, "Oi, I said Roger Goodell has died.
Don't delete that tweet." Then, with their ruse refuted, they took
a knee with a message that read: "Ok, Ok, you amateur detectives
win. Good Job"
Mr. O'Murchu said that hundreds of millions of passwords have
fallen into the hands of hackers following recent breaches.
"I think we will likely see more of these attacks," he said.
"What we are seeing now is like digital graffiti, people are
showing that they can do it."
Computers users can protect themselves by never reusing a
password and requiring password authentication, Mr. O'Murchu
said.
--Robert McMillan contributed to this article.
Write to Ezequiel Minaya at ezequiel.minaya@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 07, 2016 17:25 ET (21:25 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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