No details were released on the perpetrator who illegally accessed Stepanova’s ADAMS account.
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In December 2014, Russian 800 meters runner Yulia Stepanova and her husband fell in media limelight after a series of German documentaries, aired in December, on doping abuse in Russian sports.
Wada’s Anti-Doping Administration & Management System (ADAMS) allows athletes to enter information about their whereabouts from anywhere in the world to help the agency co-ordinate testing.
“I expected to be barred from the Olympic Games”, said Stepanova, who joined her husband as an informant after she was sanctioned for biological passport abnormalities.
“A subsequent investigation allowed the agency to determine that no other athlete accounts on ADAMS have been accessed”, the organisation added, indicating this was a highly-targeted attack.
Ed Macnair, CEO of cloud security specialists CensorNet, told IT Pro: “It’s good to see Wada was monitoring the account of an athlete in such a sensitive position, locking it down upon discovering the bogus login”.
WADA explained that it is contact with “the relevant law enforcement authorities” and that it has always been a target for hackers.
The International Association of Athletics Federations had wanted Stepanova to compete in Rio in recognition for her role in uncovering the extent of Russia’s state-sponsored doping system.
It comes as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it has also suffered a barrage of cyberattacks during the Rio 2016 Olympics. The account was locked and she was immediately notified about the incident. Stepanova served a two-year ban and admitted to being part of the Russian system for longer than that as part of the evidence she provided.
“We are trying to take every measure possible to be safe, which is why we have moved”. The decision came despite the fact that the ruling athletics body IAAF had granted her permission to run as a neutral athlete at events including Rio, owing to her “truly exceptional contribution to the fight against doping in sport”.
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The IOC considered banning all Russian athletes from the 2016 Games over doping allegations, but ultimately chose to leave the final decision to global sports federations.
