The St Louis Cardinals are the subject of an FBI investigation for allegedly hacking into an internal Houston Astros network and stealing confidential information about player personnel.
That sentence is mind-blowing. Here’s more from the New York Times.
Investigators have uncovered evidence that Cardinals officials broke into a network of the Houston Astros that housed special databases the team had built, according to law enforcement officials. Internal discussions about trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports were compromised, the officials said.
The officials did not say which employees were the focus of the investigation or whether the team’s highest-ranking officials were aware of the hacking or authorized it. The investigation is being led by the F.B.I.’s Houston field office and has progressed to the point that subpoenas have been served on the Cardinals and Major League Baseball for electronic correspondence.
And why did Cardinals employees allegedly hack into the Astros networking system? Vengeance, of course!
Law enforcement officials believe the hacking was executed by vengeful front-office employees for the Cardinals hoping to wreak havoc on the work of Jeff Luhnow, the Astros’ general manager who had been a successful and polarizing executive with the Cardinals until 2011.
The hacking apparently *is* related to the leaks from Houston’s Ground Control system that were released to Deadspin last year.
More details on the hacking…
The intrusion did not appear to be sophisticated, the law enforcement officials said. When Mr. Luhnow was with the Cardinals, the organization built a computer network, called Redbird, to house all of their baseball operations information — including scouting reports and player personnel information. After leaving to join the Astros, and bringing some front-office personnel with him from the Cardinals, Houston created a similar program known as Ground Control.
[…]
Investigators believe Cardinals officials, concerned that Mr. Luhnow had taken their idea and proprietary baseball information to the Astros, examined a master list of passwords used by Mr. Luhnow and the other officials who had joined the Astros when they worked for the Cardinals. The Cardinals officials are believed to have used those passwords to gain access to the Astros’ network, law enforcement officials said.
Luhnow used the same passwords?!? Man…trust is one hell of a thing.
Somehow, there’s a more ridiculous part of this. How did the FBI’s attention get focused on the Astros? Well, the hacker accessed Houston’s system from a house that Cardinals officials lived in. You couldn’t even do this at a library?!
Believing that the Astros’ network had been compromised by a rogue hacker, Major League Baseball notified the F.B.I., and the authorities in Houston opened an investigation. Agents soon found that the Astros’ network had been entered from a computer at a home that some Cardinals officials had lived in. The agents then turned their attention to the team’s front office.
This entire story is surreal.
1) Someone from the Cardinals allegedly felt the need to hack into the Astros network database because they were afraid Jeff Luhnow had taken information with him to Houston.
2) Luhnow apparently used the same passwords in Houston as he did in St. Louis.
3) The alleged Cardinals hacker used a computer at a residence where Cardinals officials lived in to access the network.
Someone needs to cue up the theme from Curb Your Enthusiasm. It can’t get any more ridiculous than this, can it?
