Track and field’s global governing body — the sports organization that has most forcefully disciplined Russia for state-sponsored doping — said on Monday that its computer network had been compromised by the same Russian cyberespionage group that American intelligence officials have tied to a broad effort to influence the United States presidential election. The hackers were able to gain access to athletes’ private medical records, the track and field body said. The International Association of Athletics Federations, the sport’s ruling body, said it had discovered the attacks on Feb. 21. It attributed them to Fancy Bear, a group that stole records from global antidoping regulators last year, after the regulator recommended that Russia be barred from the 2016 Summer Olympics. Intelligence officials and forensics experts have linked Fancy Bear to Russia’s military intelligence agency. The I.A.A.F said on Monday that it had consulted with the authorities in Britain and Monaco, where the organization has its headquarters, and secured its network in recent days. “Our first priority is to the athletes who have provided the I.A.A.F. with information that they believed would be secure and confidential,” Sebastian Coe, the I.A.A.F. president, said in a statement, noting that all athletes who had filed medical records since 2012 had been informed. “They have our sincerest apologies and our total commitment to continue to do everything in our power to remedy the situation.” Last year, Fancy Bear hacked the athlete database of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the global regulator of drugs in sports, as well as the email account of an employee of the United States Anti-Doping Agency. Both organizations had recommended that Russia be barred from the 2016 Olympics over elaborate cheating at the previous Games. Through the end of 2016, Fancy Bear published the confidential medical information of more than 100 athletes — predominately from Britain and the United States — as well as the emails of antidoping officials from the United States and Canada. As of Monday afternoon, no new information had been published to the site, titled #OpOlympics. Both the hackers and Russian sports officials have argued that the stolen records show that Western athletes have received unfair advantages through so-called therapeutic-use exemptions, or special waivers to take drugs that are typically banned. Any athlete can apply for such a waiver, requesting permission, for example, to use an inhaler or take a medication to treat attention-deficit disorders. Global antidoping and sports officials have denounced the disclosures, emphasizing that none of the implicated athletes had done anything wrong and that all had sought proper permissions. In January, in a declassified intelligence report focused on the United States election, American intelligence officials said that Fancy Bear’s intrusions into the World Anti-Doping Agency had originated with G.R.U., the Russian military intelligence agency also involved in the theft of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee. The officials suggested that the Russian state had been motivated by revenge. “Putin publicly pointed to the Panama Papers disclosure and the Olympic doping scandal as U.S.-directed efforts to defame Russia, suggesting he sought to use disclosures to discredit the image of the United States and cast it as hypocritical,” the report said, referring to the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. The I.A.A.F. was among the first and most forceful in disciplining Russia for systematic doping, suspending the nation in 2015 and voting last summer to bar Russia from the Rio Olympics. Only one Russian track and field athlete, who had been living and training in the United States, was permitted to compete. Russia remains barred from global track and field competitions and appears set to miss this summer’s world championships in London. Sports officials have suggested that November may be the soonest the nation is restored to good standing. As Russian officials have broadly apologized for doping problems, they have also regularly referred to Fancy Bear’s stolen information. “Russia never had the opportunities that were given to other countries,” Vitaly Smirnov, a former top Russian sports official appointed by Mr. Putin to reform the nation’s antidoping system, told The New York Times in Moscow in December, referring to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s hacked records as evidence. “The general feeling in Russia is that we didn’t have a chance.”
The track and field governing body the International Association of Athletics Federations ( IAAF ) has confirmed its system was compromised in Russia by Fancy Bear , the same company that stole records from global anti - doping regulators last year . The IAAF said the hackers had been able to access athletes ’ private medical records , while IAAF president Sebastian Coe expressed " our sincere apologies and our total commitment to continue to do everything in our power to remedy the situation " . The hackers and Russian officials claimed western athletes have been given an unfair advantage through therapeutic - use exemptions .