Shadowy groups and criminals looking to steal data are a major problem for website owners and over the weekend, we saw two such efforts in the hobby.
Heritage Auctions was hit with a malware attack Friday that disrupted a planned close of its latest sports memorabilia auction. The company’s entire site remained essentially offline through Tuesday morning. By late afternoon, the site was back up and the auction had been extended through this Friday.
Goldin Auctions went down during the latter stages of its auction on Saturday night, also because of a cyber attack.
Bob Freedman of Simple Auction Site, which manages the software for several sports auction companies including Goldin Auctions, says the attacks he’s dealt in recent years are coming “almost exclusively” from North Korea and China. Freedman told us attacks rarely come from North America because hackers know they’ll be easier to track.
Blocking access to people in other countries can be tricky business, though, because not every bidder is based in the U.S. or Canada.
Keeping up with what hackers are up to is a time-consuming effort that’s become necessary, not just for major online retailers but small business websites as well. Hackers are usually seeking to extract data and user information, but Freedman says encrypting that data in various ways is usually effective.
The home run ball Pete Alonso hit to tie the rookie record for single season home runs sold for $27,690 Sunday night.
The Mets turned it over to MLB Auctions where it generated 86 bids. The money raised goes to their charitable foundation.
Alonso tied the record with a first inning homer off Dallas Keuchel on September 27. The ball bounced back onto the field as was turned over to Alonso, who signed and inscribed it after the game.
It’s a keeper for @Pete_Alonso20! pic.twitter.com/cOKP3DnvM1
— New York Mets (@Mets) September 28, 2019
A fan caught the record-breaking homer #53 and gave that ball back to Alonso. Presumably, he’s keeping that one.
JustRipIt.com is going to be opening another 1958 Topps football cello pack tomorrow night. It’s also a fundraising event to help a veteran’s organization.
You might remember their last two ’58 Topps football packs, each of which contained a Jim Brown rookie card. The second of the two packs also included a second-year Johnny Unitas. The Unitas was graded 8 by PSA while the Brown netted a 6.
Their pack-breaking show begins at 7 PM Tuesday.
It’s Rickey Henderson’s turn to talk about his career and open some old baseball card packs with Mike Oz of Yahoo Sports.
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