Royal Dutch Football Association Confirms It Paid Ransom for Hacked Employee Data

The governing body for soccer in the Netherlands said this week that it paid a ransom to hackers who breached its systems earlier this year and stole the sensitive data of more than 1.2 million employees and members. The Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) didn’t say how large the ransom was, but it confirmed that the prolific LockBit ransomware gang — which took credit for the incident — was indeed behind the attack. The KNVB, based in Zeist, runs the country’s main professional leagues, the Dutch men's and women's national teams, the Dutch Cup and amateur leagues. In April KNVB’s leadership had announced the incident, saying the organization’s business operations were not affected but the intruders had obtained personal data. Law enforcement agencies in the Netherlands and the Dutch Data Protection Authority were notified. That same month, LockBit claimed to have stolen 305 GB of data.