The following is a press release from Wandera. So far, I haven’t found a response from NFL Mobile, but if I do, I’ll update this.
While NFL fans across the country are gearing up to watch the big game on February 1 at University of PhoenixStadium in Glendale, Arizona, hackers may be snatching their private data from the mobile devices in their pockets.
Just a number of days away from the big game, Wandera, the world’s first Mobile Data Gateway, has discovered a serious security hole in the popular NFL Mobile app. The vulnerability leaves highly valuable personal information exposed to hackers. The risk is particularly high at this time, when users are likely to be accessing the app ahead of the biggest game of the season between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks.
Wandera’s scanning technologies have discovered that after the user securely signs into the app with their NFL.com account, the app leaks their username and password in a secondary, insecure (unencrypted) API call. The app also leaks the user’s username and email address in an unencrypted cookie immediately following login and on subsequent calls by the app to nfl.com domains.
With these credentials, an attacker can access the user’s full NFL profile at http://www.nfl.com. This profile page is unencrypted as well, so the registered personal data is also vulnerable to man-in-the-middle intercept.
It is unclear whether any credit card information would also be visible, as Wandera’s security team did not attempt to purchase any NFL Merchandise during the review.
“NFL Mobile is a relatively popular app with our US customers,” said Eldar Tuvey, CEO of Wandera. “It is ironic that just like a quarterback being vulnerable to an interception, the NFL app is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack that puts users’ data at risk of interception by hackers.
“23 percent of our US customers have at least one employee using the app, and we expect this to increase significantly as the big game approaches.
“We have not yet reviewed other NFL Enterprises apps, such as ‘NFL Now’, ‘NFL Fantasy Football’, etc. Potentially these feature similar vulnerabilities,” continues Tuvey.
“A very high percentage of users reuse passwords across multiple accounts, so the email/password combination for NFL Mobile may also be the same as those used to access sensitive corporate data, banking sites, or other high value targets. Moreover, date-of-birth, name, address and phone number are the exact building blocks required to initiate a successful identity theft from the NFL fans.
“Mobile attacks are growing on all platforms, but it’s clear that many businesses are still underestimating the severity and risk that smartphones present. The threats out there are real and changing every day. Fragmented, piecemeal security simply will not do anymore.”
Profile data includes:
- Username
- Full name
- Full postal address
- Phone number
- Occupation
- TV provider
- Date of birth
- Favorite team
- Greatest NFL Memory
- About me
- Gender
- Links with social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, MSN)