Front office officials of the St. Louis Cardinals are reportedly the target of an FBI and U.S. Justice Department investigation into a security breach of the Houston Astros' computer network.
Last June, the Astros acknowledged they were victimized by hackers who accessed their servers for information, including talk about possible trades. Once the Astros learned of the breach, they contacted Major League Baseball security who, in turn, notified the FBI.
The New York Times on Tuesday cited law enforcement officials as saying investigators have evidence that Cardinals officials broke into a special database created by the Astros for internal discussions about trades, statistics and scouting reports.
Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow worked in the Cardinals' front office from 2003 through the 2011 season, serving in scouting and player development. He was hired by the Astros to run their baseball operations department in December 2011.
"The St. Louis Cardinals are aware of the investigation into the security breach of the Houston Astros' database," the Cardinals said in a statement Tuesday. "The team has fully cooperated with the investigation and will continue to do so. Given that this is an ongoing federal investigation, it is not appropriate for us to comment further."
According to the Times, Luhnow and the Cardinals built a computer system to house baseball operations department information. Once he left for the Astros, Luhnow created a similar network that, investigators say, Cardinals' officials were apparently able to access by employing passwords previously used by Luhnow.
After the Times' story broke, Major League Baseball also issued a statement regarding the investigation.
"Major League Baseball has been aware of and has fully cooperated with the federal investigation into the illegal breach of the Astros' baseball operations database," the statement read. "Once the investigative process has been completed by federal law enforcement officials, we will evaluate the next steps and will make decisions promptly."
The Astros apparently became aware their system had been compromised when documents displaying front office communications were posted online.
[SportsNetwork.com]
