Cyber Incident Victim: Chris Jericho
Date:
Jan 2017
Location:
United States of America
Summary
A hacker group compromised multiple social media accounts associated with a professional wrestling organization, including those of prominent wrestlers and affiliated event pages, along with several major news network Facebook pages. The attackers left messages claiming to test security vulnerabilities while promoting their own protection services, briefly defacing accounts before access was restored. The organization confirmed the breach, attributing it to linked administrative credentials, while the hackers stated targets were selected randomly without malicious intent beyond demonstrating security weaknesses. Similar previous incidents involved compromises of entertainment companies and media outlets.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 2 techniques |
| Threat Actor | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 actor | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On January 28, 2017, the hacker group OurMine compromised multiple official World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) social media accounts, including the Twitter profiles of WWE Universe, WWE NXT, WWE Network, SummerSlam, and wrestlers John Cena and Triple H. The group also breached WWE's Tumblr page during this coordinated attack. OurMine left identical messages across all compromised accounts stating, "Hey, it's OurMine we are just testing your security, please contact us for more information, Thanks," accompanied by their logo. WWE confirmed the incident to Mashable, acknowledging that several Twitter accounts had been briefly hacked on Saturday evening and that security teams had subsequently resecured them. The following day on January 29, OurMine expanded their campaign by breaching CNN's primary Facebook account along with its CNN International and CNN Politics subsidiary pages, posting the same signature message and contact details before CNN removed the unauthorized posts approximately 30 minutes after detection.
OurMine claimed responsibility for both breaches, asserting that the WWE accounts were vulnerable because they were linked to the head of social media's account. When questioned about their motives by IBTimes UK, a group representative stated they selected targets randomly rather than through deliberate selection. The hackers positioned themselves as security testers, offering vulnerability assessments through their website while maintaining they had "no bad intentions." This incident followed previous OurMine compromises of high-profile accounts throughout 2016, including Marvel Entertainment's character Twitter profiles, Netflix's US Twitter account, NFL's official handle, and executives like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey. The WWE and CNN breaches resulted in temporary loss of account control, reputational exposure, and operational disruption, though no permanent data loss or financial damages were reported. Both organizations restored normal operations within hours through standard account recovery procedures, with WWE issuing a formal acknowledgment of the incident while CNN executed silent remediation without public commentary beyond content removal.