Hackers appear to have World Anti Doping Agency in their sights yet again

The World Anti Doping Agecny (Wada) may once again become a target for hackers. A hacker group going by the name "Anonymous Poland", which claimed responsibility for a previous cyberattack on the official Wada website, now appears to have once again taken aim at the Olympic drug-testing agency.

The hacker group reportedly tweeted its intentions to resume attacks on Wada on 5 September, reaching out to reporters at the Hill, Voactiv, Softpedia and databreaches.net, the Hill reported. Wada's website was previously compromised on 11 August, after the agency issued a damning report on Russia's 2014 Sochi Games doping cover-up.

In early August, both Wada and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said they had been targeted by hackers distributing phishing emails, in efforts to gain access to employees' login credentials.

Hackers had also targeted Russian doping whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova's accounts following her incriminating testimony which revealed Russia's state-backed doping programme. According to cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect, both Wada and Stepanova were targeted by the same hackers who are believed to be responsible for the recent controversial DNC hack.

Despite Anonymous Poland's claims to having compromised Wada, according to ThreatConnect, the cyberattacks were perpetrated by the decade-old Russian hacker group known as Fancy Bear, which security researchers with Crowdstrike have said is believed to be linked to the Russian military.

It is uncertain if Anonymous Poland is in any way linked to Fancy Bear or any other Russia-based hacker group. ThreatConnect determined that the cyberattacks on Wada and Stepanova were likely "targeted activity by Russian actors in response to the whistleblower and the Wada's recommendation to ban all Russian athletes from the Olympic and Paralympic games".

However, the firm was unable to pinpoint Anonymous Poland's origin and any ties to the hacker groups believed to be responsible for the DNC hack. "At this time, we are skeptical of @anpoland's origins but cannot determine the extent to which, if any, they are a Russian platform similar to Guccifer 2.0 or DCLeaks," the firm said.