Venus1337 claims breaches at two Belgian sports federations days apart
Belgium's French-speaking gymnastics federation has confirmed that an intruder reached part of its IT environment and took data out. The table tennis federations, alerted Thursday, say checks of their systems and their web provider have found no sign of compromise so far.
The Watch · Security desk
What happened
- Jean-Michel Mureau, president of the French-speaking AFTT, confirmed an attack over the weekend and said the Royal Belgian Table Tennis Federation had also been affected.
- Belgium's French-speaking gymnastics federation confirmed that unauthorized individuals accessed part of its IT environment and extracted data, and it notified Belgian cybersecurity and data protection authorities.
- The AFTT said checks of its own systems and of its website provider had turned up no evidence of compromise and no sign that members' phone numbers or email addresses were taken.
Why it matters
- What doesn't add up contradiction One federation says data left its network; the other reports clean checks on both its own systems and its web provider's. A shared-platform explanation for the pair has nothing on the record behind it yet.
- Who's exposed exposure Judges' licenses and coaching qualifications identify who holds authority inside clubs. An attacker with that list can impersonate officials to volunteer administrators. That is the risk the FfG flagged.
- What's now possible capability If the club administrative accounts Venus1337 claims are genuine, the attacker holds working logins at many small clubs that have no IT staff to notice their use.
- Who has to decide decision The AFTT has tied member notification to what its investigation finds; the FfG has already gone to the Belgian regulators.
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The two federations are describing different situations. The FfG said unauthorized individuals got into part of its IT environment and extracted data [11]. "As soon as the incident was discovered, we called in experts," the federation said Thursday, adding that "the access route used was neutralized, the affected access points were secured, and our systems are now subject to enhanced monitoring" [12]. The AFTT said it had checked its own systems and those of the service provider responsible for its website [1]. "At this stage, the checks carried out have not revealed any evidence to suggest that its infrastructure has been compromised," the association said [2].
What links the two cases on the record is the handle. Venus1337 claimed credit for both, the gymnastics breach days earlier [16]. FrenchBreaches, a site that tracks leaks, reported the table tennis case first, and described samples containing names, membership numbers, member and user information, and records related to sporting sanctions [8].
The claimed haul at the table tennis federations is nearly 1.7 gigabytes, with records linked to more than 66,800 members and 17,400 users plus administrative accounts belonging to clubs [9]. That is 84,200 individuals [23]. Add the more than 200,000 members Venus1337 claimed at the gymnastics federation [17] and the total on offer is upwards of 284,200 records from two Belgian federations [24]. None of it has been independently verified [10], and the FfG has confirmed that personal data was affected without endorsing the number [17].
Mureau said the AFTT was alerted on Thursday and asked its IT provider to investigate the extent of the breach [6]. Neither federation has named a supplier common to both cases [22].
The FfG data is the more useful of the two sets to an attacker. Coaching qualifications, judges' licenses, postal addresses and the contents of accident reports [14] describe who holds authority inside clubs and what happened to whom. The federation said the information could be used for impersonation or to obtain further personal data, and that it had seen no misuse so far [15].
France has had a run of the same thing. More than 30 sports organizations there have reportedly been hit since late 2025, including the federations for tennis, skiing, swimming, sailing, golf, football and shooting [18]. There is no evidence connecting those cases to the Belgian ones [19]. French authorities detained an 18-year-old suspected member of ZeroBytes earlier this month, the group that claimed the French Handball Federation breach [20], and arrested a 20-year-old earlier this year over dozens of intrusions, among them the national gymnastics, sailing, athletics and motorsport federations [21].
The AFTT said it would notify affected individuals and take other required steps if its investigation determines that personal data was compromised [7].
What to watch
- Whether the FRBTT issues its own account of what left its systems, separate from the AFTT's provider checks.
- Whether the FfG or Belgian authorities describe the access route that was neutralized.
- Independent verification matching Venus1337's two sample sets to the same source system would establish one operator behind both.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence60
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
In a statement Monday, the AFTT said it was taking the incident "very seriously" and had carried out checks of its own systems as well as those of the service provider responsible for its website.
- [2]
"At this stage, the checks carried out have not revealed any evidence to suggest that its infrastructure has been compromised," the AFTT said.
- [3]
The AFTT strengthened security measures on its own systems as a precaution and has so far found no evidence that information such as members' phone numbers or email addresses was accessed or stolen, although the investigation is ongoing.
- [4]
Jean-Michel Mureau, president of the French-speaking Association Francophone de Tennis de Table (AFTT), confirmed the attack over the weekend and said the Royal Belgian Table Tennis Federation (FRBTT) had also been affected.
- [5]
"I can confirm that there was indeed an attack," Mureau said in a statement. "We have tasked our IT department with investigating to determine exactly what data was compromised."
- [6]
The federation was alerted to the incident on Thursday and asked its IT provider to investigate the extent of the breach, according to Mureau.
- [7]
The AFTT said it would notify affected individuals and take other required steps if its investigation determines that personal data was compromised.
- [8]
The incident was first reported last week by FrenchBreaches, a website that tracks data leaks and cyberattacks; according to the site, samples purportedly posted by the attacker included names, membership numbers, information about members and users, and records related to sporting sanctions.
- [9]
A hacker using the handle Venus1337 claimed responsibility, posted samples online, and claimed to have obtained nearly 1.7 gigabytes of data including records linked to more than 66,800 members and 17,400 users, as well as administrative accounts belonging to clubs.
- [10]
Those claims have not been independently verified, and the federation has not confirmed that the volume or categories of data described by the hacker were stolen.
- [11]
The gymnastics federation confirmed that unauthorized individuals had accessed part of its IT environment and extracted data.
- [12]
"As soon as the incident was discovered, we called in experts," the FfG said Thursday. "The access route used was neutralized, the affected access points were secured, and our systems are now subject to enhanced monitoring."
- [13]
The FfG said it had notified Belgian cybersecurity and data protection authorities.
- [14]
Potentially affected information in the FfG breach includes names, email and postal addresses, phone numbers, details related to coaching qualifications and judges' licenses, and information contained in accident reports, according to the federation.
- [15]
The FfG warned the information could potentially be used for impersonation or attempts to obtain additional personal data, and said it had not observed any misuse of the information so far.
- [16]
Venus1337 also claimed responsibility for a separate breach involving Belgium's French-speaking Gymnastics Federation (FfG) just days earlier.
- [17]
Venus1337 claimed to have obtained information concerning more than 200,000 members in the gymnastics breach; the federation has confirmed that personal data was affected but has not publicly verified the hacker's figure.
- [18]
Since late 2025, more than 30 French sports organizations have reportedly been affected by cyberattacks or data breaches, including federations overseeing tennis, skiing, swimming, sailing, golf, football and shooting.
- [19]
There is no evidence that the French incidents were connected to the attacks in Belgium.
- [20]
Earlier this month, French authorities detained an 18-year-old suspected member of the ZeroBytes hacking group, which previously claimed responsibility for the breach of the French Handball Federation.
- [21]
In a separate investigation earlier this year, French police arrested a 20-year-old suspected of carrying out dozens of breaches, including attacks involving national federations for sailing, athletics, motorsports, gymnastics, skiing, rugby league, aikido and university sports.
- [22]
The reporting on the two incidents identifies the provider responsible for the AFTT website and a separate intrusion into the FfG's IT environment, without naming any IT or web provider shared by the table tennis and gymnastics federations.
- [23]
The table tennis records Venus1337 claims cover 84,200 individuals.
- [24]
Across the two Belgian federations, Venus1337's claims total more than 284,200 records.
Sources
2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- thecyberexpress.comBelgian Sports Federations Hit by Cyberattacks, Data Under Investigation
1 article · September 21, 2026
- therecord.mediaBelgian table tennis, gymnastics federations hit by cyberattacks
1 article · September 21, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- Sports organization cybersecurity
- Data Breach Disclosure
Entities
- French-speaking Gymnastics Federation
- Royal Belgian Table Tennis Federation
- Jean-Michel Mureau
- Association Francophone de Tennis de Table
- Belgian Data Protection Authority