The 2020 NFL draft is slated to start Thursday, and thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be the first virtual version of the event ever presented. This raises a few cybersecurity concerns, according to researchers and the teams themselves — but the NFL is planning on knocking the security ball straight through the uprights. Fans and players alike look forward Draft Day every year, when clubs, choosing based on a pre-set order, ask hopefuls looking to play football on a pro level to join their rosters. This year, club personnel, League staff and prospects will all participate from home. According to the NFL, individual clubs will submit their picks to the league office via Microsoft Teams. For communications between team personnel, Zoom has been approved for use. And, all 58 prospects have been sent a phone and camera set up for broadcast and communication with the League. With a lot of valuable data on hand, the NFL must get security right.
NFL picks aren’t what we traditionally associate with valuable corporate data, but they could be highly valuable to a malicious actor on Draft Day. Having this data stolen and shared out to the world ahead of that team’s pick could alter the future of their organization.
As team personnel collaborate on Draft Day, they will be sharing data between multiple devices; exemplifying how employees access data fluidly between traditional endpoints and mobile devices with the adoption of cloud-based technologies. Ensuring that mobile devices are secured now and in the future is just as detrimental to the future of every NFL team as any other enterprise organization.