The St. Louis Cardinals’ baseball team is currently under investigation by the FBI and Justice Department for the suspected hacking of the Houston Astros’ computer network. The Astros’ trade considerations, player statistics and scouting reports were compromised in the hack. Last year, the Houston Astros’ proprietary player information, including 10 months of internal documentation about potential player trades, was posted by an anonymous source online which triggered the federal investigation into the data breach. 

The central figure in the breach is Jeff Luhnow, the current General Manager of the Houston Astros, who had worked as an executive and analyst with the St. Louis Cardinals until 2011. As an employee of the Cardinals, Luhnow developed Redbird, a software application that synchronized all available player information and disseminated it among front office personnel. After leaving the Cardinals, Luhnow hired some of the Cardinals’ front-office personnel to work with him for the Astros and created a similar, proprietary system for analyzing player information. Luhnow is a known proponent of Sabremetrics, also known as Moneyball, a system utilizing baseball statistics to deduce empirical data for game analysis.  

According to the New York Times, investigators believe that St. Louis Cardinals’ officials examined passwords previously used by Luhnow and the departed front office officials, then used them to gain access to the Astros’ centralized player information hub. Subpoenas have already been served to both Major League Baseball and St. Louis Cardinals officials. The Times’ reports that the source of the original data breach lead investigators back to the home of a Cardinals’ official.

The St. Louis Cardinals currently have the best record in Major League Baseball this season and the Houston Astros hold second place in the American League. The case is the first documented instance of cyber espionage among professional sports teams and demonstrates the importance of changing passwords when switching to a new job.

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