Hackers try to steal £1m transfer fee during football club cyber attack, report.

Hackers froze turnstiles at a football game and tried to steal a £1m club transfer fee in recent cyber attacks on UK sport, a new report has revealed.

Cybercriminals hacked the emails of a Premier League club’s managing director during a transfer negotiation and would have been able to pocket the fee if it wasn’t for a late intervention from the bank, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said.

The NCSC’s first Cyber Threat to Sports Organisations report also revealed 70% of major UK sports organizations suffer a cyber-attack every year, which is more than double the average for other businesses.

Another English football club was targeted by a ransomware attack that stopped its turnstiles and CCTV systems from working, which nearly resulted in a match being cancelled, the document said.

A member of staff at a UK racecourse also lost £15,000 after attempting to buy a piece of grounds keeping equipment on eBay from a fraudster, according to the report. It did not reveal which clubs were affected.

The biggest single loss from a sport cyber attack was £4m – with an average per incident of £10,000, it added.

The NCSC is urging sports organisations to bolster their online security to prevent them from falling victim to more attacks as the sector recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.