St. Louis Cardinals Investigated by F.B.I. for Hacking Astros

Talk about a change of pace, wow.

At the New York Times, "Cardinals Face F.B.I. Inquiry in Hacking of Astros’ Network":

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. and Justice Department prosecutors are investigating whether front-office officials for the St. Louis Cardinals, one of the most successful teams in baseball over the past two decades, hacked into internal networks of a rival team to steal closely guarded information about player personnel.

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.

The attack represents the first known case of corporate espionage in which a professional sports team has hacked the network of another team. Illegal intrusions into companies’ networks have become commonplace, but it is generally conducted by hackers operating in foreign countries, like Russia and China, who steal large tranches of data or trade secrets for military equipment and electronics.

Major League Baseball “has been aware of and has fully cooperated with the federal investigation into the illegal breach of the Astros’ baseball operations database,” a spokesman for baseball’s commissioner, Rob Manfred, said in a written statement.

The Cardinals officials under investigation have not been put on leave, suspended or fired. The commissioner’s office is likely to wait until the conclusion of the government’s investigation to determine whether to take disciplinary action against the officials or the team...

 Fascinating.

Continue reading, as well as the responses at Memeorandum.

ADDED: More from Bill Shaikin:

Whatever it takes? Cardinals under FBI investigation for hacking -- into Astros computers, per @nytimes: http://t.co/ovL7YVwGl8

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) June 16, 2015

MLB statement on alleged hack: League will act "once the investigative process has been completed by federal law enforcement officials."

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) June 16, 2015

Cardinals statement: “The team has fully cooperated with the investigation and will continue to do so."

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) June 16, 2015

More Cardinals: "Given that this is an ongoing federal investigation, it is not appropriate for us to comment further.”

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) June 16, 2015