A report by the British National Center for Cyber Security revealed that one of the Premier League football clubs was losing nearly one million pounds (about $ 1.2 million) in a player transfer deal after being targeted by Internet pirates.
The report, released on Wednesday evening, indicated that the club’s manager’s emails - whose name has not been released - were compromised during negotiations over the deal and the
money was almost stolen if the club’s bank had stopped the transfer of funds.
The report highlighted other similar incidents, and recommended sports clubs in Britain and administrative bodies to tighten their electronic security precautions.
"I appeal to sports agencies to use this period to discuss a mechanism to develop their cyber security," said Paul Chichester, director of operations for the British National Center for Cyber Security.
"Although cybersecurity may not constitute one of the most important aspects of the sports sector engaged in return (after a mandatory pause due to the Corona pandemic), our findings have shown that this industry has already been affected by cyber crime," he added.
The center stated that research revealed that 30% of those crimes caused financial losses with values that started from about 12 thousand dollars, and the losses from one of the crimes reached more than 4 million dollars.