Medical data from some of the world’s leading athletes has been posted to the web and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)âu00c2u0080u00c2u0088says Russians are to blame.
London: Medical data from some of the world’s leading athletes has been posted to the web and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)âu00c2u0080u00c2u0088says Russians are to blame.
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Even the hackers seem to agree, adopting the name “Fancy Bears” — a moniker long associated with the Kremlin’s electronic espionage operations.
But as cybersecurity experts pore over the hackers’ digital trail, they’re up against a familiar problem. The evidence has been packed with possible red herrings — including registry data pointing to France, Korean characters in the hackers’ code and a server based in California.
“Anybody can say they are anyone and it’s hard to disprove,” said Jeffrey Carr, the chief executive of consulting firm Taia Global and something of a professional skeptic when it comes to claims of state-backed hacking.
Many others in the cybersecurity industry see the WADA hack as a straightforward act of Russian revenge, but solid evidence is hard to find. IOC President Thomas Bach said on Friday that he will ask Russian authorities for help to stop the hackers. Bach said the IOC will help WADA “including communicating with the Russian authorities, to underline the seriousness of the issue and request all possible assistance to stop the hackers”. Later on Friday WADA announced Fancy Bears had posted another selection of hacked data to the web. This time, they targeted 11 athletes — three from Australia, one from Denmark, two from Germany, one from Spain and four from the UK.
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