Those in the privacy and data security (or baseball) world should be familiar with the St. Louis Cardinals and Houston Astros hacking incident. Former St. Louis Cardinals’ scouting director, Chris Correa, was recently sentenced to 46 months and ordered to pay restitution after pleading guilty to five counts of unauthorized access of a protected (Astros) computer, bringing an end to the federal criminal investigation. Recapping the hacking highlights, Correa accessed the Astros’ proprietary player information database, Ground Control. Ground Control contained the Astros’ “collective baseball knowledge” drawn from player statistics, impressions and opinions of the team’s scouts, coaches, statisticians and doctors, and other sources. Correa also accessed the email accounts of several members of the Astros front office including “Victim A” (likely former Cardinals executive and present Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow), “Victim B” (likely former Cardinals and present Astros sabermetrician Sig Mejdal), and at least one other person. According to the Astros, Correa accessed Ground Control at least 60 times on 35 different days over a 15-month period; one can only speculate as to breadth and depth of Correa’s access to the Astros’ email system. The intrusions initially appeared to have emanated from a device housed in a condominium in Jupiter, Florida (the Cardinals’ spring training home), but given the lengthy period of time, likely involved other devices in other locations. Correa gained access to the Astros’ systems by having Luhnow’s Cardinals’ passwords which were “similar” to his Astros’ passwords. Correa both reviewed and downloaded Ground Control information.
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