Could the NFL’s virtual draft get hacked? Some teams are fearing the worst
Thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak suspending sports across the world, leagues must find creative ways to go about their business, and the NFL is no exception.
On Monday, commissioner Roger Goodell announced that the 2020 NFL Draft, which was supposed to be held April 23-25 in Las Vegas, is going to be fully virtual.
What does this mean exactly? It means that the league is abiding by the social-distancing rules issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since team facilities remain closed, the draft is moving online.
But that brings a different problem to light: Hackers.
Goodell broke the news in a memo sent to all 32 clubs.
“Because of these circumstances, Clubs have been advised to prepare to conduct the 2020 Draft entirely outside of our facilities and in a fully virtual format, with club personnel in separate locations and able to communicate with one another and Draft headquarters by phone or internet,” Goodell said in the memo.
“We have reviewed this matter in the past few days with both the Competition Committee and CEC, and this will confirm that Clubs will conduct their Draft operations remotely, with club personnel separately located in their homes.”
With a draft that is solely done online, it could be a target for professional hackers, and that has some teams worried. Several NFL teams are using the video-conferencing application Zoom to stay in contact with their athletes and coaching staff.
“Yeah, big concern,” Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said to the Baltimore Sun. “Every time I read something in, like, The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times that talks about how messed up Zoom is, or some of these other deals ... I immediately text it to our IT people, and (director of football administration) Nick Matteo is one of those guys and they assure me that we are doing everything humanly possible.”
It should be noted that Harbaugh was using Zoom during the conference call with the Baltimore Sun to express his concerns ... about Zoom.
School districts have been struggling with security issues surrounding the video-conference service. The Washington Post reported that districts started banning Zoom because of online security issues.
The Ravens coach isn’t the only one kept awake at night with worries of a virtual hacking scandal.
On ESPN’s “Get Up” on Tuesday, NFL Insider Adam Schefter expressed similar concerns.
“These teams are used to having great communication,” he said. “Now you can do it through teleconferencing, but there are already teams worried about having their Zoom teleconference hacked in by another team. That’s been a question that’s been raised right now.”
ProFootballTalk’s Peter King interviewed Los Angeles Rams COO Kevin Demoff, who also has concerns.
“How could you make sure your conversations are protected? Someone could hack into this Zoom, and you’re probably not going to learn a lot,” Demoff said. “Hacking into a team’s draft room on Zoom is probably a lot different. That would be my biggest concern just from an encryption standpoint of how do you have these conversations confidentially.”
If hackers break into the system during the draft, it could have a domino effect on how all leagues — not just the NFL — conduct business virtually during this pandemic.
“We’ll see what happens,” Harbaugh said. “I really wouldn’t want the opposing coaches to have our playbook or our draft meetings. That would be preferable, if we can stay away from that.”
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 2:49 PM with the headline "Could the NFL’s virtual draft get hacked? Some teams are fearing the worst."