Connect with us

Governing Bodies

CYBER CRIME! IOC TWITTER ACCOUNTS HACKED

Published

on

BY LIAM MORGAN.

Twitter accounts controlled by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have tonight been hacked by cyber group OurMine.

A post from the hacking group appeared on handles belonging to the IOC, including the official Olympics and IOC Media accounts, this evening.

The Athlete365, Youth Olympic Games and official Rio 2016 accounts were among the others affected.

A spokesperson for the IOC confirmed the organisation was investigating “a potential breach into some of its social accounts”.

Advertisement

“Hi, we are OurMine,” the post, seemingly published simultaneously across the IOC’s Twitter pages, read.

“Everything is hackable.

“To improve your accounts [sic] security, contact us: contact@ourmine.org.”

The message has been removed from all affected pages

It marks the latest cyberattack by OurMine, which describes itself as “an elite hacker group known for many hacks showing vulnerabilities in major systems”.

Advertisement

OurMine, which frequently uses cyber vandalism to advertise its services, also targeted the official Twitter accounts of Spanish giants FC Barcelona for the second time.

The English and Spanish language pages owned by the famous La Liga club were hijacked by OurMine back in 2017.

Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts of 15 National Football League (NFL) and the NFL itself were hacked by the same group last month.

The Olympics Facebook account does not appear to have been hacked.

A hack known as the “Olympic Destroyer” took down Wi-Fi during the Opening Ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang also affected several broadcasts of the event by knocking out television screens.

Advertisement

Pyeongchang 2018 websites were also hit, leaving fans unable to print tickets or view results of events.

-insidethegames

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

Continue Reading
Advertisement