Milwaukee Bucks prove even NBA teams fall victim to email phishing

Internet fraud tricks new victims all the time, but what you don't hear about everyday is an entire NBA team getting duped. Sadly, that's what's happened to the Milwaukee Bucks, who have revealed that financial data on all employees of the basketball team, including players, has been compromised. Turns out the old tactic of email phishing was used, with an employee releasing 2015 tax records after someone impersonated team president Peter Feigin.

In what's been labeled a "serious security incident," the league says that names, social security numbers, addresses, dates of birth, and salary details are among the data that has been obtained. The fraudsters made the request for financial data on April 26th, and it seems the team didn't discover its mistake until May 16th.

It's not clear if the phishing attempt was made by a specific group of hackers or if it was just someone acting alone, but the IRS and FBI are said to have been contacted, while the NBA and National Basketball Players Association will carry out an ongoing investigation.

A representative for the Milwaukee Bucks says that staff and players will be given three years of credit monitoring as well as identity restoration assistance. Employees will also go through privacy training and be taught preventative measures so a human error of this type doesn't happen again.

SOURCE Yahoo