Hack Brief Russian Hackers Release Apparent IOC Emails in Wake of Olympics Ban
0Hack Brief Russian Hackers Release Apparent IOC Emails in Wake of Olympics Ban.
On Wednesday, in the wake of Russia's December ban from the 2018 Winter Olympics, a Russia-linked group calling itself "Fancy Bears" published a set of apparently stolen emails. They purportedly belong to officials from the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee, and third-party groups associated with the organizations. It's not the first time Russia has lashed out at the IOC and the anti-doping agencies in the last few years. And with a month left until the games begin, it may not be the last.
The emails appear to span from the end of 2016 to the spring of 2017, and focus on correspondence between antidoping investigators who helped uncover a wide-scale, systematic doping scheme carried out by Russian athletes. It's not clear yet whether the emails are entirely authentic; Russian hacking groups have snuck false information into their leaks before. But the World Anti-Doping Agency Wednesday indirectly acknowledged that the emails were real, but not current.
"The Fancy Bears are a criminal organization which seeks to undermine the work of WADA and its partners," says WADA spokesperson Maggie Durand. "Everything that they have posted today is dated."
The hack appears to be retaliation for kicking the Russia out of 2018 PyeongChang games, at which only a handful of the country's athletes will be allowed to compete.