Fancy Bear Steals Athletes' Medical Data

[CrAKeN]

 

Fancy Bear strikes against athletes

 

Espionage group Fancy Bear, which is believed to be behind the DNC hack during the US elections last year, seems to have compromised servers of the world governing body for athletics and have stolen athletes' medical data. 

 

The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) was hacked sometime this past February, and the attack was attributed to APT 28, also known as Fancy Bear, ZDNet reports. 

 

APT 28 is the same group that claimed responsibility for numerous incidents over the years, including leaking Olympic athletes' confidential medical files following an attack against the World Anti-Doping Agency, but also, as mentioned, the interference with the US 2016 elections. 

 

The unauthorized access to the IAAF network was detected when metadata on athletes' Therapeutic Use Exemption was collected from the server and stored in a newly created file. These files mention whether certain athletes are allowed to use prescribed medical treatment. 

 

Over 80 athletes targeted

The IAFF said that the data on more than 80 athletes who applied to be allowed to use medication since 2012 had been compromised. In fact, the data "seems to have been removed from the server" by unauthorized outsiders. The IAAF says the intent of the hackers was to access the TUE data since nothing else was compromised. 

 

The athletes affected by the hack have already been informed about the situation. "Our first priority is to the athletes who have provided the IAAF with information that they believed would be secure and confidential. They have our sincerest apologies and our total commitment to continue to do everything in our power to remedy the situation and work with the world's best organizations to create as safe an environment as we can," the IAAF said on the matter. 

 

The attack was discovered by Context Information Security, a cybersecurity firm that has been performing a technical investigation across the IAFF's systems since the beginning of the year. They claim the IAFF is fully aware of the importance and impact of the attack and has been assisting them fully. 

 

They claim that they are quite confident that the cyber attack can be attributed to Fancy Bear, although no further details were provided to back up the claim.

 

Source