A flaw in the FIFA World Cup’s internal system gave anyone the ability to edit TV broadcasts

A security researcher said she was able to access several internal FIFA platforms due to a simple security vulnerability, allowing her to watch and take full control of the TV broadcast of every World Cup match.

The researcher, who goes by the name BobDaHacker, said she simply registered as a player agent on FIFA’s official agent registration platform. Then, thanks to having this account and a flaw in FIFA’s backend API, which didn’t check if the user actually had the proper authorization, I was able to access several internal FIFA platforms.

This included a system that allows broadcasters to control what is shown on people’s televisions around the world, and what is shown on the commentators’ screens as they narrate the match, according to the researcher.

“One attacker could have hijacked all the cameras at once. An attacker could have hijacked the entire FIFA World Cup,” BobDaHacker wrote. In a blog post Published on Tuesday.

BobDaHacker reported the bug on Tuesday night Japan time, and FIFA fixed the issue a few hours later, without acknowledging the researcher’s report.

FIFA did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.