Reportedly, 1,113 NFL players had their personal information exposed on players’ association website

The U.S. National Football League has reportedly seen a huge data leak where 1,113 players had their personal information posted online.

The website for the NFL Players Association also included contact information for the players and their agents in the reach. Exposed information apparently included:

• Email addresses and mobile telephone numbers
• Home addresses of agents
• IP addresses for users when signing in
• Logged information for the website was accessed
• Advisor fee percentages

Not all current NFL players were affected by the breach, but it did include well-known quarterback for San Francisco 49ers Colin Kaepernick; free agent quarterback Robert Griffin; and former cornerback for New York Jets Darrelle Revis.

The professional American football league consisting of 32 teams is reportedly worth a staggering $45 billion, with NFL franchises averaging a cool $1.4 billion. NFL is a major corporation in the U.S. and is probably the most popular sports league in the country. American students can even join universities on sport scholarships through playing American football, so it’s no surprise that NFL players are revelled as celebrities like our own professional football players are.

With the amount of personal information leaked about these  celebrities, affected NFL players may have been exposed to all sorts of risks, including risks to their own safety. With the exposure of personal contact information, the affected players and agents may expect eager fans contacting them to express their awe and admiration for them.

In darker scenarios, rival fans may attempt to harass or inflict harm on them. As such, this is a very serious breach when put in to context.

The exposure has since reportedly been secured, but it’s not known how many people have accessed or downloaded the information. It may also be impossible to trace if the information has been distributed elsewhere.

Forbes magazine managed to get a hold of an email sent to an agent warning them of the breach and what the next steps were… The email read:

“We have worked with cybersecurity experts at Microsoft and our database consultant to determine the extent of the improper access. We are confident that it was limited to a two-hour period last week.”

It continued to reassure players and agents that no social security numbers nor financial details were compromised in the leak. NFLPA also noted that it will be working with an independent firm to do a full review of cyber security measures set up.