Computer system of the Swedish Sports Confederation, the organization that oversees Sweden’s national sports federations, was compromised by Russian military intelligence in 2017-18 in what officials described as “repeated and comprehensive breaches.”
The intrusion was part of a data-breaching campaign that also affected some of the world’s leading sporting bodies, including FIFA and the World Anti-Doping Agency. The breaches resulted in athletes’ personal details, such as medical records, being accessed and then being published by Swedish media, prosecutors said.
“The investigation shows that the Russian military intelligence, GRU who, via its 85th Center, also known as unit 26165, has planned and carried out the serious breaches of data secrecy against the Swedish Sports Confederation. We can further state that the breaches have been a part of a Russian campaign directed against national and international anti-doping organisations such as WADA and USADA. The campaign has also been directed against FIFA,” public prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said. “The information has been published openly and, based on these details, Swedish media have written articles which follow GRU’s narrative of discrediting athletes and sports organisations in the West.”
The attacks were discovered following an investigation by the Swedish Security Service, however, Swedish authorities have decided to discontinue the investigation “due to the lack of the necessary preconditions for taking legal proceedings abroad or extradition to Sweden.”