Cyber Incident Victim: Minnesota Vikings
Date:
Jan 2020
Location:
United States of America
Summary
The Minnesota Vikings were among multiple NFL teams targeted in a social media account hijacking campaign by the OurMine hacking group, which compromised Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram profiles. Attackers briefly gained unauthorized access to the team's accounts and those of other franchises, posting promotional content to demonstrate security vulnerabilities. The group's actions affected several high-profile organizations simultaneously, aiming to garner attention for their activities while highlighting inadequate protective measures across targeted accounts.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 1 technique |
| Threat Actor | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 actor | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On January 22, 2020, the OurMine hacking group initiated a coordinated takeover of social media accounts belonging to multiple National Football League (NFL) teams and the NFL organization itself. The Minnesota Vikings' Instagram and Facebook accounts were among seven NFL entities compromised during this campaign, which also affected the Dallas Cowboys, Buffalo Bills, Houston Texans, Kansas City Chiefs, Green Bay Packers, and the NFL's primary accounts. Attackers gained temporary control over these platforms, leveraging the teams' massive combined follower base of tens of millions to amplify their activities. This incident marked an escalation in OurMine's 2020 hacking spree, which began earlier that week with breaches targeting Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and several celebrities including Will Smith and Bobby Berk. The group publicly claimed responsibility via their Twitter account during the two-hour window of control, though their account was subsequently suspended by the platform.
The Minnesota Vikings lost access to both Instagram and Facebook during the breach, though account control was restored within hours. No specific details about posted content or internal detection methods were disclosed for the Vikings' case, but the organization followed the broader pattern observed across all affected NFL teams in swiftly re-securing their compromised accounts. The incident caused operational disruptions to the teams' social media operations and generated significant media attention due to the high-profile nature of the targets. OurMine's actions appeared primarily motivated by notoriety-seeking and demonstrating security vulnerabilities, as evidenced by their historical pattern of similar breaches prior to their 2017 hiatus. While financial impacts were not explicitly reported, the breach exposed authentication weaknesses across multiple major sports franchises' social media infrastructures simultaneously.