U.S. intelligence officials are now pointing the finger at Russia for the successful hacking attacks on the Winter Olympics.

The claim comes via a Washington Post report referencing anonymous intelligence officials. They said that not only was the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU behind the hacks, but they also tried to make the hacks look like they had come from North Korea by using North Korean internet addresses and “other tactics.”

Hacking of the PyeongChang Olympics started Dec. 22, with those behind the attack targeting officials via a phishing campaign. Come the opening ceremony Feb. 9, another attack caused the ticketing site for the games to go down for 12 hours, preventing visitors from accessing and printing out tickets.

The report claimed that the Russians managed to gain access to about 300 computers, hack routers and distribute malware in the days leading up to and during the opening ceremony. The motivation for the attack is claimed to be retaliation over the International Olympic Committee banning Russian athletes from competing for their country on account of doping accusations.

The blame for the attack placed on Russia is no surprise given that a state-sponsored actor was always believed to have been behind the attack. Russia has denied their involvement previously, saying Feb. 11 that “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 Olympics Games in the Republic of Korea. Of course, no evidence will be presented to the world.”

Attacks where one party pretends to be another is not a new concept and interestingly one used by American intelligence agencies as well. A release from Wikileaks in 2017 detailed a campaign in which the Central Intelligence Agency created and used code that pretended to be from Kaspersky Lab while hacking people and also described the CIA’s ability to impersonate cyberattack techniques used by Russia and other nation states. As one report noted at the time, the disclosure essentially proves that “the CIA has the ability to plant evidence to make it look like Russian hackers were the culprits,” potentially disrupting and discrediting “the entire Russia hacking narrative being pushed by the media.”

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