Fergie's Tech Blog

UK: Chinese Hackers Break Into Olympic Sports Databases

Owen Slot writes on The Times Online:

Computer hackers in China have broken into the information databases of the governing bodies of two British Olympic sports and, The Times can reveal, the Olympic family in the UK has been alerted that, with the Beijing Games less than eight months away, those threatening their security may be doing so to gain an illegal competitive advantage.

The first sport targeted was GB Canoeing, which was hit in October. The other Olympic sports in Britain were immediately informed, but the IT system of the Amateur Boxing Association of England (ABAE) was then subject to eight attacks over a three-week period and two investigations have traced all this activity back to internet protocol (IP) addresses in China. “This wasn’t kids mucking around,” Paul King, the ABAE chief executive, said. “This was a real professional job.”

posted by Fergie @ 12/15/2007 05:15:00 PM