An attack on the Nobel organization’s computer systems is the most likely cause of last year’s leak of the name of Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, according to the results of an investigation.
An individual or a state agent may have gained illegal access through a cyber breach, the Norwegian Nobel Institute said on Friday (30), after completing an internal investigation with support from security authorities.
The leak sparked a , just hours before she was announced as the winner in October. The leader of the Venezuelan opposition was not considered one of the favorites for the 2025 award.
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“We still believe that the digital domain is the main suspect,” said Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Oslo-based institute, the administrative arm of the Nobel Committee that awards the prize.
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The institute decided not to request the opening of a police investigation due to the “absence of a clear theory”, he said in an interview in Oslo.
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Several national and foreign entities, including the national security authority NSM, assisted in the investigation.
The institute had previously said that cyber espionage was the most likely cause of the suspicious wave of betting, and that an internal leak of the name was “unlikely” – something that Harpviken said, on Friday, that it has been examined and that it is “convinced that this is not the explanation”.
An operator, under the username dirtycupbet around US$70,000 on a Machado victory and ended up making approximately US$30,000 in profit, according to data on the Polymarket website.
The leak, unusual bets and subsequent investigation brought even more attention to last year’s prize, which was already the subject of great controversy.
Repeated statements by President Donald Trump that he should be awarded for ending countless wars contributed to the politicization of the award. Their frustration led, in part, to the worsening of relations between Norway and the United States — a key security ally. Earlier this month, .
Trump, in a message to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, .
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The award is not decided by the Norwegian government, but awarded by an independent committee. Nominations for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize close on Saturday.
The Nobel organization has been targeted by hackers before, but last October’s events marked the first time there were online bets on the laureate in advance.
“It could have been spyware; there are different ways this could have happened,” Harpviken said. “We, of course, did a very careful mapping of all possible breaches.”
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“There are areas where we believe our procedures are pretty foolproof, and there are others where we see that we can strengthen our routines,” he said, adding that revealing any measures “would not be very sensible from a security perspective.”
NSM is responsible for protecting Norway’s digital infrastructure and strengthening the country’s ability to combat espionage, sabotage, terrorism and hybrid threats.
The authority also assisted the Nobel Institute in 2010, when it suffered a major hacker attack after the prize was awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, local outlet VG reported at the time.
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In December 2021, a cyberattack hit the Nobel Prize websites in Oslo and Stockholm during the award ceremonies. The following month, the institute asked Norwegian police to investigate the so-called distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, which it classified as “serious” although it said there were no suspects.
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