St. Louis, MO (SportsNetwork.com) - The St. Louis Cardinals knew months ago they were the focus of a federal investigation over an alleged security breach of a computer network belonging to the Houston Astros and hired a law firm to conduct an internal investigation that is ongoing, team officials said Wednesday.

"These are serious allegations that don't reflect who we are as an organization," Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr. said. "We are committed to getting to the bottom of this matter as soon as possible, and if anyone within our organization is determined to be involved in anything inappropriate, they will be held accountable."

According to DeWitt, the Cardinals knew "several months ago" they were the focus of an FBI and U.S. Justice Department investigation into the alleged hacking of the Astros' servers for internal information about trades, statistics and scouting reports.

The computer system was built by Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, who ran a similar program when he worked in the Cardinals front office from 2003-11.

According to the New York Times, which broke the story Tuesday, investigators believe Cardinals officials were able to access the Astros' system by using passwords previously employed by Luhnow when he was working for the Cardinals.

The Astros acknowledged last June that they had been victimized by hackers and contacted Major League Baseball, which notified the FBI. The team was made aware of the hack after internal documents showing front office communications were posted online.

DeWitt said the Cardinals hired former U.S. attorney Jim Martin and the law firm Dowd Bennett "to assist the team in providing requested information to the federal government and to conduct an internal inquiry to attempt to identify any employee that may have engaged in the alleged conduct."

"The alleged conduct has no place in our game," Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak said in a statement. "We hold ourselves to the highest standards in every facet of our organization. It has been that way forever and is certainly true today. We are committed to finding out what happened.

"To the extent we can substantiate that these allegations have merit, we will take appropriate action against anyone involved."

Martin said the internal investigation is not complete.

"In the meantime, we wish to respect the process and avoid saying anything which would interfere with the government's investigation," he said.