The PGA of America, not to be confused with the PGA Tour, was hacked last week with a ransomware attack and is apparently still working to re-establish its computer files.
Golfweek reported during last week’s PGA Championship that PGA employees were locked out of computer files containing marketing materials for the major event in St. Louis, as well as files for next month’s Ryder Cup in France. In place of promotional banners, logos, and other PGA-branded content, staff found a threatening message on their computers demanding payment in Bitcoin if they didn’t want to lose their files forever.
“Your network has been penetrated,” the digital ransom note read. “All files on each host in the network have been encrypted with a strong algorythm [sic].”
The threat included additional warnings that efforts to shut down and reboot could do further damage to files and systems. The hackers demanded ransom payment in Bitcoin to a specific Bitcoin wallet number, but did not leave a specific amount for them to release the PGA files.
The PGA of America reportedly has hired third-party security experts to help solve the problem. Computer security experts usually advise companies not to pay such ransoms and instead try to recreate encrypted files from the most recent computer backup. They remind clients even if the ransom is paid, there’s no guarantee files can be unlocked.
Defending Golf Data
The PGA of America — an organization headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida — represents golf professionals, including instructors, nationwide. The group is not the same, however, as the PGA Tour, a spin-off group comprised of tour players that functions as the organizer of most weekly pro golf tournaments.
PGA Tour counsel David Miller, in a statement to Legal Sports Report, said, “I want to clarify that the hack was of marketing materials of the PGA of America, the association of club professionals. They do not collect or distribute scoring or performance data for any professional golf events, including this week’s PGA Championship. The PGA Tour does.”
Miller’s statement stresses to golf bettors that PGA of America marketing materials, and the server from which they were taken, have nothing to do with official PGA Tour data, and the hack in no way threatened the integrity of sports betting data, which PGA of America doesn’t collect or distribute.
Major US sports leagues, including the PGA Tour, have been pushing for state gaming regulators to require bookmakers to purchase official league data. In January, the PGA Tour and Genius Sports launched a new integrity program designed to use data with predictive algorithms to help sniff out suspicious betting activity for further investigation.
Genius is a software provider that sells “integrity services” to over 300 sporting bodies around the world that collect and distribute in-game statistics to partners such as Major League Baseball and the English Premier League. In May, Genius signed a 10-year agreement to provide data services for the NCAA.
Bookmakers Balking
Bookmakers are reticent about the prospects of having to buy their sports data from a league provider — suggesting that such a monopoly situation would make it impossible to negotiate a fair fee. They cite the current situation in which there is only one source from which to buy the live NFL game feeds and the price for that service has skyrocketed in recent years.
MGM Resorts International, earlier this month, made its own deal with the NBA to purchase the league’s official data and branding rights in a $25 million, three-year, non-exclusive arrangement.
It’s not clear, as yet, if the MGM/NBA deal will provide a template for deals with other bookmakers and other leagues.
Access to accurate data is the keystone to “in-play” wagering and is regarded as the fastest growing segment of sports wagering.