Russian Hackers Release More Confidential Athlete Data; WADA Confirms

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) confirmed that another batch of confidential athlete information has been released by the cyber hackers known as “Fancy Bear.”

The Agency originally announced a leak by the cyber hackers on September 13th, however this time the group released confidential data on 25 athletes from eight different countries. Ten athletes from the USA, five from Germany, five from Great Britain, one from the Czech Republic, one from Denmark, one from Poland, one from Romania, and one from Russia were targeted.

The cyber hackers originally gained access to the Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS) through an International Olympic Committee (IOC) created account that was created specifically for the 2016 Rio Games. Only confidential athlete information pertaining to the Games has been accessed and WADA has stated that they “have no reason to believe that other ADAMS data has been compromised.”

Director General of WADA, Olivier Niggli, released the following statement,

WADA is very mindful that this criminal attack, which to date has recklessly exposed personal data of 29 athletes, will be very distressing for the athletes that have been targeted; and, cause apprehension for all athletes that were involved in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. To those athletes that have been impacted, we regret that criminals have attempted to smear your reputations in this way; and, assure you that we are receiving intelligence and advice from the highest level law enforcement and IT security agencies that we are putting into action.

Given this intelligence and advice, WADA has no doubt that these ongoing attacks are being carried out in retaliation against the Agency, and the global anti-doping system, because of our independent Pound and McLaren investigations that exposed state-sponsored doping in Russia. We condemn this criminal activity and have asked the Russian Government to do everything in their power to make it stop. Continued cyber-attacks emanating from Russia seriously undermine the work that is being carried out to rebuild a compliant anti-doping program in Russia.

WADA has noted that they are reaching out to the National Anti-Doping Organizations (NADOs) and International Sports Federations (IFs) of those athletes impacted by the data release so as to provide support.

More about the newest cyber attack on WADA can be found here.

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Caryle Blondell

7 years ago

That’s crazy. I hope WADA get this under control soon before everyone’s information gets exposed. This can seriously under mind WADA authority.