According to a report in Washington Post on Sunday, U.S. Intelligence has found that Russian military spies hacked several hundred computers used by authorities during the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea.
Over 300 Olympic-related computers were hacked early in February, continuing a string of cyber attacks in the Winter Olympics.
U.S. officials say that this was a “false-flag” operation, where they carried out the attack while making it appear as though North Korea was behind it by using North Korean IP addresses. Olympics confirmed at the beginning of the games that an attack had taken place but did not reveal who the attackers were.
The attack took down internet and WiFi access during the opening ceremonies on February 9th, as well the event’s website, and also case the failure of several other Olympic-liked websites and broadcast systems.
Due to the attack, many attendees were unable to print their tickets, leading to empty seats.
Some analysts believe that the attack was in retribution to Russia’s ban in the Winter Olympics after an investigation into doping violations by Russia.
However, Russia’s foreign ministry has denied Russia’s involvement in the attacks. "We know that Western media are planning pseudo-investigations on the theme of ‘Russian fingerprints’ in hacking attacks on information resources related to the hosting of the Winter Olympic Games in the Republic of Korea," it said.