After Russian hackers leaked medical records of U.S. Olympic athletes, gold medal-winning gymnast Simone Biles is coming clean about her own medication use for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
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The group, Fancy Bear, published the information obtained form hacking the WADA database on their website. The respective International Federations, through the proper process, granted the permission and it was recognized by the IOC and USADA.
“The cyber-bullying of innocent athletes being engaged in by these hackers is cowardly and despicable. It is time for the entire global community to stand up and condemn this cyber-attack on clean sport and athletes rights”.
Ordinarily, WADA prohibits the use of the substance.
“I have ADHD and I have taken medicine for it since I was a kid”.
Venus Williams meanwhile expressed “disappointment” at the breach, stating: “I am one of the strongest supporters of maintaining the highest level of integrity in competitive sport”.
“The IOC strongly condemns such methods which clearly aim at tarnishing the reputation of clean athletes”, the organization said. Fancy Bear members used a technique known as spear phishing to gain access to the Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS) database through an account that was created by the International Olympic Committee, the agency said in a statement.
Her revelation came as Russian hackers published her medical record as part of a leak of top US athlete’s files Tuesday. “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”.
A Russian group has hacked the World Anti-Doping Agency’s athlete database and revealed private medical information for some of America’s top athletes, falsely claiming to find incriminating evidence of doping.
WADA said it “deeply regrets” the situation and is conscious of the threat to athletes’ whose confidential information was leaked. “We are reaching out to stakeholders. regarding the specific athletes impacted”.
The whistleblower at the center of the McLaren Report, Grigory Rodchenkov, was the head of Russia’s anti-doping lab and detailed a program of switching out about 100 urine samples for dozens of athletes and at least 15 Olympic medal winners over the course of the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia.
WADA said that law enforcement had told it the attacks originated in Russian Federation.
Let it be known that these criminal acts are greatly compromising the effort by the global anti-doping community to re-establish trust in Russian Federation further to the outcomes of the Agency’s independent McLaren Investigation Report.
Last month, WADA said that the ADAMS password for Russian runner Yuliya Stepanova was illegally obtained by a perpetrator who used it to access her account.
They declared that they are taking the attack seriously and are launching an investigation with law enforcement.
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On Tuesday, the sports drug-testing agency blamed a recent breach of its network on a Russian hacking group known as APT 28 or Fancy Bear.
