IAAF
says medical records compromised by Fancy Bear hacking group
Send a link to a friend
[April 04, 2017]
By Brian Homewood
ZURICH (Reuters) - The governing body
of global athletics (IAAF) said on Monday it had suffered a cyber
attack that it believes has compromised information about athletes'
medical records.
The IAAF said in a statement the hacking group known as Fancy Bear,
which has been linked by western governments and security experts to
a Russian spy agency blamed for some of the cyber operations that
marred the 2016 U.S. election, was believed to be behind the attack
of medical records in February. The hack targeted information
concerning applications by athletics for Therapeutic Use Exemptions,
the IAAF said.
Athletes who had applied for TUEs since 2012 have been contacted and
IAAF president, Sebastian Coe, apologized.
"Our first priority is to the athletes who have provided the IAAF
with information that they believed would be secure and
confidential,” Coe said in the statement. "They have our sincerest
apologies and our total commitment to continue to do everything in
our power to remedy the situation."
TUEs are issued by sports federations and national anti-doping
organizations to allow athletes to take certain banned substances
for verified medical needs.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Apr/04/images/ads/current/Applegate_exc_sda_daily_030415.png)
The IAAF said that data on athlete TUEs was "collected from a file
server and stored on a newly created file".
"The attack by Fancy Bear, also known as APT28, was detected during
a proactive investigation carried out by cyber incident response
(CIR) firm Context Information Security," the IAAF said.
Private security firms and U.S. officials have said Fancy Bear works
primarily on behalf of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence
agency. Fancy Bear could not be immediately reached for comment.
The group and other Russian hackers were behind the cyber attacks
during the U.S. presidential election last year that were intended
to discredit Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and help Donald
Trump, a Republican, win, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.
Russia has repeatedly denied the allegations.
It was not known if the information was stolen from
the network, the IAAF said, but the incident was "a strong
indication of the attackers’ interest and intent, and shows they had
access and means to obtain content from this file at will".
[to top of second column] |
![](../images/040417pics/sports61.jpg)
Sebastian Coe, IAAF's President, attends a press conference as part
of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF)
council meeting in Monaco, February 6, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Apr/04/images/ads/current/cia_lda_SFARM_2017.png)
The attack was uncovered after British company Context Information
Security conducted a investigation of the IAAF's systems at the
request of the athletics body.
Context Information Security said in a separate statement that it
was a "sophisticated intrusion" and that "the IAAF have understood
the importance and impact of the attack and have provided us
comprehensive assistance."
Last year, Fancy Bear hacked into the World Anti-Doping Agency
(WADA) database and published the confidential medical records of
several dozen athletes.
Those included cyclist Bradley Wiggins, the 2012 Tour de France
winner and Britain's most decorated Olympian with eight medals, who
was revealed to have used TUEs before some races.
Wiggins retired last year under something of a cloud after it was
revealed he took corticosteroid triamcinolone for asthma, although
he broke no anti-doping rules.
The IAAF banned Russia's athletics federation after a WADA
commission report found evidence of state-sponsored doping. Almost
all Russia's athletes missed the track and field events at the Rio
Olympics last year and are likely to also miss the world athletics
championships in London in August.
(Writing by Brian Homewood in Zurich; additional reporting by Dustin
Volz in Washington; editing by Mark Heinrich/Mitch Phillips and
Grant McCool) [© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All
rights reserved.]
Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten
or redistributed.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Apr/04/images/ads/current/atlantanationalbank_sda_072114.png) |