The U.K. government claimed the Kremlin is behind hacking group Fancy Bears and is "responsible for the spate of cyber attacks" on some of world sport's leading organizations over recent years, according to Lawrence Ostlere of the London INDEPENDENT. A new report by the U.K. National Cyber Security Centre accused Russian military intelligence service GRU "of indiscriminate and reckless cyber attacks targeting political institutions, businesses, media and sport," and linked Fancy Bears' activity to both the GRU and Russia President Vladimir Putin's government. Fancy Bears "has carried out a range of cyber attacks" including hacking WADA and the IAAF, releasing medical documents belonging to British athletes including Mo Farah, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome and targeting the IOC. The British government concluded "with high confidence that the GRU was almost certainly responsible" for Fancy Bears attacks including the one on WADA in Aug. '17, and adjudged the illegal operations to be "part of wider international cyber warfare by the Russian government" (INDEPENDENT, 10/4). The BBC reported a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson described the accusation as a "rich fantasy of our colleagues from Britain." British police think the men who carried out the Salisbury poisoning in March "worked for the same group." Speaking on behalf of the Russian foreign ministry, Maria Zakharova said that the U.K.'s accusations were "mixed in one perfume bottle," adding, "Maybe a Nina Ricci bottle: GRU, WADA, Kremlin hackers -- it's a diabolical perfume." But U.K. Defense Minister Gavin Williamson condemned Russia as a "pariah state," and said that Moscow's "reckless and indiscriminate" attacks have left it "isolated" in the int'l community (BBC, 10/4).
