If you were a Chicago Bears fan, your jaw might have dropped seeing your favorite football team announcing new Saudi ownership. The hacker used the team's official Twitter account to announce that they have been sold to Saudi Arabian official Turki Al-Sheikh.
Al-Sheikh, who serves as chairman of his country’s General Authority for Entertainment, has won multiple awards for his sports-related endeavors.
The announcement was shortly followed with an explanation on behalf of “OurMine”. They explained that they decided to hack the Bears' official account to "announce that we are back" and to "show people that everything is hackable."
Before those tweets were taken down by the NFL team, the hackers replied to the verified Lions fan account “Pride of Detroit” who asked if they would trade linebacker Khalil Mack. Their response, simply read, “Done for 1$.”
The NFL team later announced that they have retrieved their Twitter account successfully, adding that they are ready for the highly anticipated Super Bowl, which will take place next Sunday.
Apologies that our account was compromised this morning. We're back in the game & ready for the Pro Bowl. ?⬇️
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) January 26, 2020
While that was how the Bears situation went down, over a dozen other NFL team accounts along with the official Twitter account for the league were also hacked with the same message from OurMine.
The twitter accounts for the @NFL, @Chiefs, @packers and @ChicagoBears got hacked. pic.twitter.com/7Ps2kINm4b
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) January 27, 2020
The Chiefs, Packers, 49ers, Bills, Giants, and Cowboys are just some of the many official fan accounts were targeted by the group.
15 NFL team twitter accounts appear to have been hacked (all are missing profile pictures): @DallasCowboys, @Broncos, @Colts, @HoustonTexans, @Packers, @BuffaloBills, @Giants, @Eagles, @Buccaneers, @Chargers, @ChicagoBears, @Chiefs, @49ers, @Browns, @AZCardinals.
— NFL Update (@MySportsUpdate) January 27, 2020
All the targeted NFL Twitter accounts have since regained their access, with once-deleted Tweets, headers and bios having now returned.
“As soon as we were made aware of the issue, we locked the compromised accounts and we are currently investigating the situation,” the league said in a statement.
It's unknown if there will be more attempts in the future, but the league is now taking steps to prevent this from happening again.
Life was simpler when today’s biggest sports story was the Saudis realizing that the Chicago Bears’ social media password is “password”
— Maybe: The Buds? (@LeBronMaclean) January 26, 2020
