Hacking activities can affect all sorts of organizations, such as the Football Leaks scandal in which a hacker exposed the practices of the world’s most popular sports executives and entrepreneurs. Experts in logical security mention that the Real Madrid football club has decided to keep the legal process against Rui Pinto, the individual responsible for these leaks, as he considers him the main responsible for Cristiano Ronaldo’s transfer to Italian football a couple of years ago.
Through the Football Leaks website, Pinto revealed multiple leaks about contracts, transfer figures, football salaries and information about the owners and leaders of Europe’s leading football clubs. Many members of the cybersecurity community know this site as the sports version of WikiLeaks.
Rui Pinto has been under house arrest since last April, when he reached an agreement with the authorities to leave the prison, where he was held in March 2019. The hacker achieved this by cooperating with authorities in various investigations related to leaks.
Part of his cooperation with the authorities was the delivery of eight storage units, mentioning logical security experts. On these devices Pinto stored details about Cristiano Ronaldo and his tax problems in Spain, for which he received a sentence of 23 months in prison; although the Portuguese footballer did not go to prison thanks to an agreement with the authorities, this mess would have been decisive for him to decide to leave the Spanish club for Italian club Juventus.
Although the specialized press points out many other causes for Ronaldo to make this decision, inside Real Madrid they consider that these leaks were made with the specific objective of damaging the relationship between the club and the footballer, so his legal department initiated a trial against Rui Pinto, which will continue until the last consequences.
In addition to the Spanish football club’s accusations, Pinto faces a sentence of up to 25 years in prison for crimes of unauthorized access to computer systems and attempted blackmail, as mentioned by specialists in logical security.
He is a well-known expert in mobile security and malware analysis. He studied Computer Science at NYU and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2003. He is actively working as an anti-malware expert. He also worked for security companies like Kaspersky Lab. His everyday job includes researching about new malware and cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in mobile security and mobile vulnerabilities.
