Cyber Incident Victim: Stats Perform
Date:
Oct 2020
Location:
United States of America
Summary
A cyber attack targeted Stats Perform, a sports data provider, disrupting its platform during college football games and causing widespread issues for daily fantasy sports operators. The outage forced FanDuel to manually settle NFL contests and issue refunds alongside customer credits, while DraftKings utilized backup providers to minimize interruptions. Fantasy platforms scrambled to secure alternative data sources for subsequent events as the company worked to rebuild servers and restore services. The incident exclusively affected fantasy operations, sparing betting services, but prompted significant financial repercussions including potential damage claims from operators and millions in customer compensation. The attack mirrored a prior breach involving another sports technology firm that resulted in substantial loss reserves.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 1 technique |
| Threat Actors | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 0 actors | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
A cyber attack targeted sports data provider Stats Perform around October 3, 2020, causing its platform to fail during college football games. The outage persisted for nearly a week, disrupting live statistics and scoring services critical to daily fantasy sports operators. FanDuel and DraftKings experienced immediate operational challenges, with FanDuel unable to automatically settle NFL contests mid-week. This forced manual resolution of payouts and refunds, including a 50% net lossback credit to affected users with minimum $5 and maximum $100 compensations. DraftKings activated backup statistical providers to maintain NFL Sunday contests, citing pre-established redundancies as key to minimizing customer impact. Other platforms like Fantrax worked to onboard alternative data suppliers, aiming to restore NCAA football statistics after NFL coverage.
Stats Perform dedicated the following week to rebuilding compromised servers, targeting a return to operations by Friday, October 16. The attack exclusively affected its fantasy sports data infrastructure, sparing betting services operated under the same corporate umbrella. Financial repercussions emerged swiftly, with FanDuel distributing millions in customer credits to mitigate dissatisfaction. Industry observers drew parallels to the SBTech cyber attack earlier in 2020, where DraftKings reserved $30 million for breach-related liabilities. Legal claims against Stats Perform appeared likely due to operator losses, though the company issued no public statements regarding the incident’s cause or scope. The disruption underscored dependencies within sports betting supply chains, with operators accelerating contingency planning during the recovery period.