Confidential medical files of Serena Williams, Simone Biles, other female US Olympians leaked by Russian hackers

 

Confidential medical data of gold medal-winning gymnast Simone Biles, seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams and basketball player Elena Delle Donne was hacked from a World Anti-Doping Agency database and posted online on Tuesday. 
  
The Russian cyber espionage group called Fancy Bear published records of "Therapeutic Use Exemptions" (TUEs), which allow athletes to use otherwise-banned substances if they have a verified medical reason to do so, the Independent reports.



Williams, who revealed in 2011 she had been diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome, an energy-sapping disease, issued a statement via her agent in which she said she was granted TUEs "when serious medical conditions have occurred," and those exemptions were "reviewed by an anonymous, independent group of doctors, and approved for legitimate medical reasons." 

  "I was disappointed to learn today that my private, medical data has been compromised by hackers and published without my permission," Williams said. "I have followed the rules established under the Tennis Anti-Doping Program in applying for, and being granted, 'therapeutic use exemption.'"

  Women's basketball gold medalist Elena Delle Donne, who had thumb surgery on Tuesday and posted a post-op pic on Twitter, along with a statement saying she takes prescribed medication approved by WADA.

  
In a statement, USA Gymnastics said Biles — who won five medals, four gold, in Rio last month — was approved for an exemption and had not broken any rules. She wrote on Twitter that she's taken medication to treat ADHD since she was a child. 

  "Please know I believe in clean sport, have always followed the rules, and will continue to do so as fair play is critical to sport and is very important to me," Biles posted.

Fancy Bear claimed the "therapeutic use of exemptions" constituted evidence of doping US Olympians. 

"After detailed studying of the hacked Wada databases we figured out that dozens of American athletes had tested positive" a statement from the group reads. "The RIO Olympic medallists regularly used illicit strong drugs justified by certificates of approval for therapeutic use. In other words, they just got their licenses for doping."

WADA previously warned of cyber attacks after investigators it had appointed published reports into Russian state-sponsored doping. 
  
World Anti-Doping Agency director general Olivier Niggli said in a statement that it was "unthinkable for hackers to illegally obtain confidential medical information in an attempt to smear athletes to make it look as if they have done something wrong.
In fact, in each of the situations, the athlete has done everything right in adhering to the global rules for obtaining permission to use a needed medication."

He added: 

"These criminal acts are greatly compromising the effort by the global anti-doping community to re-establish trust in Russia,"

WADA said "extended its investigation with the relevant law enforcement authorities." 
  
Last month, hackers obtained a database password for Russian runner Yuliya Stepanova, a whistleblower and key witness for the WADA investigations. She and her husband, a former official with the Russian national anti-doping agency, are now living at an undisclosed location in North America. 
  
A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected WADA's statement blaming Russian hackers as unfounded. 

  "There can be no talk about any official or government involvement, any involvement of Russian agencies in those actions. It's absolutely out of the question," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies. "Such unfounded accusations don't befit any organization, if they aren't backed by substance."

 The International Olympic Committee said it "strongly condemns such methods which clearly aim at tarnishing the reputation of clean athletes." 

  "The IOC can confirm however that the athletes mentioned did not violate any anti-doping rules during the Olympic Games Rio 2016," the Olympic body said.

The top American anti-doping official said it was "unthinkable" to try to smear athletes who followed the rules and did nothing wrong. 

  "The cyberbullying of innocent athletes being engaged in by these hackers is cowardly and despicable," said Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

The agency said it believed the hack was carried out using spear-phishing emails to gather passwords for the WADA Anti-Doping and Management System(ADAMS) database.

Source: The Independent/Associated Press

Mexican Government Officials Pirated Olympic Games

The Olympic Games are highly commercialized, so protecting trademarks and copyrights are some of the most important issues. For example, the organizers of the Games have taken action against Mexican government officials who recorded an event and posted the video on social media.

It is not a secret that there are billions of dollars at stake at the Olympics, and it is quite understandable that corporations would go all out to protect their interests. A few days ago, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sent takedown requests to Twitter to prevent Periscope users from streaming Olympic events. However, the organizers targeted not only ordinary users: apparently, the Rio Organizing Committee has withdrawn press credentials from Mexico’s National Commission of Physical Culture and Sports because of a copyright dispute. The Committee claimed that the Mexican officials violated its licensing conditions by filming a gymnast on a cellphone. The video was later posted to social media, despite the fact that Mexico’s National Commission of Physical Culture and Sports had no rights to broadcast Olympic content. As a result, the representatives of the Mexican government had their press credentials taken away.

 The Committee reiterated that the use of Olympic materials turned into animated graphic and short video formats are forbidden. Perhaps, it just felt that it needed to set an example, but taking away the credentials of the Mexican officials will be felt back home in Mexico. The National Commission of Physical Culture and Sports is the arm of the Mexican government charged with promoting physical education and sport, which also used to be the conduit between the Olympic Games and the Mexicans. Now it looks like the Rio Organizing Committee punished the whole country for the sharing of a single video. 

In the meantime, thousands of people are sharing recorded events at will on file-sharing services like The Pirate Bay. Moreover, the real action is taking place on the streaming sites: aside from web-browser based services, users of Kodi all over the world use specials plugins to have continuous access to live Olympic events (often in HD quality).

New York Times Reporters under Attack

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into cyber intrusions targeting reporters of the New York Times. The suggestions are that Russian intelligence agencies could be responsible for the attacks. As usual, Russia and China (or sometimes Korea) are the first suspects in any unresolved problem.
Although individual reporters are targeted in the cyberattacks, the investigators do not believe the newspaper’s entire network was compromised. So far, the FBI hasn’t disclosed how many reporters had been affected or how many email accounts were targeted.
In the meantime, federal authorities continue to investigate a breach of the Democratic National Committee. That attack was also attributed to Russian intelligence agencies by outside cybersecurity experts. As a result of the attack, embarrassing internal emails were posted online. Besides, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other Democratic entities have also been affected in the breach. As a result, Democrats were advised not to allow family members to answer their phones or read incoming texts after their leaked data was posted online.
As for the New York Times reported hack, the newspaper spokesperson would not comment on the FBI’s investigation. However, she issued a statement, admitting that like most news organizations, the New York Times is vigilant about guarding against attempts to hack into its systems through a variety of ways. Such approaches include cooperation with outside investigators and law enforcement. Apparently, the newspaper won’t comment on any specific attempts to gain illegal access to its services.