OTTAWA, September 13. /TASS/. The World Anti-Doping Agency confirmed on Tuesday that global Anti-Doping Administration & Management System (ADAMS) had been hacked leaking information on alleged doping abuse among titled US athletes and blamed the cyber-attack on Russia.
Fancybear.net web portal of hackers announced earlier that it hacked the ADAMS and leaked documents proving that WADA allowed US tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams as well as US four-time Olympic Champion in gymnastics Simone Biles and women’s basketball player Elena Dolle Donne taking banned performance enhancing drugs.
"The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) confirms that a Russian cyber espionage group operator by the name of Tsar Team (APT28), also known as Fancy Bear, illegally gained access to WADA’s Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS) database via an International Olympic Committee (IOC)-created account for the Rio 2016 Games," the agency said in its statement.
The statement quoted WADA Director General Olivier Niggli as saying that the global agency "deeply regrets this situation and is very conscious of the threat that it represents to athletes whose confidential information has been divulged through this criminal act."
"WADA has been informed by law enforcement authorities that these attacks are originating out of Russia," Niggli said.
"Let it be known that these criminal acts are greatly compromising the effort by the global anti-doping community to re-establish trust in Russia further to the outcomes of the Agency’s independent McLaren Investigation Report," he said.
The WADA Independent Commission, chaired by Canadian sports law professor, Richard McLaren, released the now-infamous July 18 report on the results of a probe into the accusations of doping and manipulation of tests by Russian athletes and officials at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games.