Official verified Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts belonging to several American football teams were hacked on Monday, including accounts of the league itself, along with the two teams heading to the final match of the current season on 2 February at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
A group identifying themselves as 'OurMine', took credit for the hacking campaign in a tweet from the account of the Green Bay Packers, with profile pictures disappearing on the verified account, and new information provided.
“Hi, we're Back (OurMine). We are here to Show people that everything is hackable,” the tweet reads.
OurMine also hacked the Twitter accounts of many other teams, including the Dallas Cowboys, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Houston Texans, the New York Giants, the Chicago Bears, and the official Twitter account of the NFL. Profile pictures for all the accounts disappeared at the same time.
The hack campaign reportedly includes Facebook pages for the Green Bay Packers, the NFL, the Buffalo Bills, the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Texans, and also the Instagram accounts for the Dallas Cowboys, the Buffalo Bills and the Minnesota Vikings.
“As soon as we were made aware of the issue, we locked the compromised accounts. We are currently investigating the situation,” a Twitter spokesperson said in confirming the hacks, cited by The Hill.
A spokesperson for Facebook and Instagram said that the company is investigating the incident and is “working to secure and restore access to any impacted accounts”.