Credit Card Malware Hackers Attack Atlanta Hawks Online Store

There are all sorts of companies and organizations that suffer data breaches and cyber attacks all over the world, including some of the most powerful and influential corporations in the world. It appears as though the latest victim is none other than the online store of the professional American basketball team the Atlanta Hawks, which was attacked by hackers on April 23, 2019.

Magecart Attack Carried Out On Hawks Store

The individual that noticed the malware is the Willem de Groot, the lead forensic analyst at a company called Sanguine Security. The company claims to be the largest anti-fraud database in the world.

The Atlanta Hawks online store was attacked by Magecart, which is the name given to specific credit card cyber attacks that have been running rampant since 2014. Some of the prominent companies that have suffered Magecart attacks in 2018 include airlines such as British Airways and the American ticket sales/distribution company Ticketmaster, among others.

Matthew Melzer, who works at the cybersecurity firm Volexity, pointed out that one of the reasons that these kinds of attacks are popular is because they aren’t particularly hard to execute. He states:

“One of the reasons why digital credit card skimmers have grown in popularity is likely due to the ease of this attack methodology as well as its success rate in comparison to others.”

A Magecart attack was carried out on the online store of the Atlanta Hawks, which is ranked 12th in the Eastern Conference of the NBA, the most well-known men’s basketball professional league in the world.

The website sells merchandise of all kinds, including hats, jerseys, and other fanfare. The Hawks, in general, are a point of pride for Atlanta, with the online store boasting millions of visits per year and the team having over one million Twitter followers.

Groot claims that he noticed the malware on April 20, but that it was still not clear exactly how the attacks had happened. While it is possible that hackers directly accessed the Atlanta Hawks website, the truth is that third-party tools can often be utilized for the attacks to work.

Groot has developed a Magecart detection engine, which has identified up to 150 online stores around the world that are compromised daily. It was through this engine that he was able to determine that the Hawks online store was being attacked. A Hawks spokesperson confirmed that the attack had occurred and that it was being investigated.