APT28 Fancy Bears Name Footballers

Advanced Persistent Threat Actors 28 (APT28), also known as Tsar Team or FancyBear, have obtained and leaked confidential medical data of 25 footballers.

Threat ID:: CC-1600
Category:
Threat Severity:: Low
Threat Vector:
Published:: 24 August 2017 12:00 AM

Report a cyber attack: call 0300 303 5222 or email [email protected]

This content has been archived

This article no longer conforms to NHS Digital's standards for cyber alerts, and may contain outdated or inaccurate information. Use of this information contained in this page is at your own risk

Summary

Advanced Persistent Threat Actors 28 (APT28), also known as Tsar Team or FancyBear, have obtained and leaked confidential medical data of 25 footballers.

Threat details

Using the FancyBear identity, they have released medical information of high profile international players. In the latest leaked documents, the group also claim to have details of 160 players who failed drugs tests in 2015. The data identifies players which were given Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs) at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in which banned substances can be used by athletes for legitimate medical reasons.

At the time of publication no NHS organisations were subject to this attack. However, there may be further attempts to obtain medical data on high profile individuals and organisations should therefore be vigilant.

Remediation steps

Type	Step
	Organisations which have access to athletes' medical records should increase their vigilance and staff awareness of spear phishing threats. Users should never open attachments or click on links from untrusted sources. If an email looks suspicious the user should try to make contact with the sender by other means to verify their identity. Security Incident and Event Management tools, network and proxy logs should be monitored for suspicious activity. The activities of APT28 will be monitored by CareCERT and any further actionable intelligence will be reported.

Type

Step

Organisations which have access to athletes' medical records should increase their vigilance and staff awareness of spear phishing threats.
Users should never open attachments or click on links from untrusted sources. If an email looks suspicious the user should try to make contact with the sender by other means to verify their identity.
Security Incident and Event Management tools, network and proxy logs should be monitored for suspicious activity.
The activities of APT28 will be monitored by CareCERT and any further actionable intelligence will be reported.

Last edited: 17 February 2020 11:27 am