Cyber Hack Reveals Medical Data of Olympic Stars
[UPDATE: Sept. 20, 2016 10:30 a.m.]
Mo Farah is the latest British athlete to face scrutiny over his use of so-called therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) after his confidential medial data was leaked online. Farah, who is a two-time gold medalist at the 2016 Olympics, is one of eight British athletes who competed in Rio to have their records released on Sept. 19 by Fancy Bear.
In all, 26 athletes from 10 different countries had their privacy breached on Monday, following the intial intrusion that affected Simone Biles and Serena Williams and 23 others last week.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Monday, according to the Associated Press, that while "we don't approve of the hackers' actions, it has helped reveal that people, who took part in the Olympics and looked absolutely healthy, had taken banned medicines giving them an edge in the competition."
The World Anti-doping Agency says it is "taking this situation concerning athlete privacy very seriously."
Original story posted below.
The World Anti-doping Agency said on Sept. 13 that Russian hackers broke into its database and stole medical data of Olympic stars including gold medalist Simone Biles and tennis player Venus Williams.
The cyber criminal group, known as the “Tsar Team” and “Fancy Bears,” publically released some of the stolen data and threatened to leak more in the future. This is the same group thought to be behind the hack on the Democratic National Committee back in June.
On the website where the stolen information was found, Fancy Bear published a message that said, “Greetings citizens of the world. Allow us to introduce ourselves. We are Fancy Bears' international hack team. We stand for fair play and clean sport.”
The hackers also stated that they will soon disclose information about “other national Olympic teams” at another time.
WADA’s database was access through an account created by the International Olympic Committee for the Rio games, WADA said. They claim the cyber-espionage group obtained the information through phishing of email accounts, which allowed hackers to obtain passwords to WADA’s database.
USA Gymnastics has stated that among the files breached were the drug testing results of Biles, who won four gold medals in the Rio games last month. The group said that Briles “was approved for a therapeutic-use exemption” of certain drugs and “has not broken any drug-testing regulations, including at the Olympic Games in Rio.”
Biles tweeted that she has ADHD and said she believes in a clean sport and has always followed the rules.
Williams issued a statement acknowledging the hack on her drug tests and said that she too had been granted “therapeutic use exemptions.” She did not cite a reason for the exemption.
The Russian government has denied any involvement in the cyberattack.