Russian cyber crime...I'm confused

[drivinmecrazy]

I've been following the story in the news today.
What is confusing me is why the Russians chose athletes and the Olympic committee as a target?
I get that they were really pissed that they were banned.
I can kid of understand their attempted hacking of the nuclear authority.
My point is why have they risked exposing themselves for such little gain.
Is it that they are trying to prove they are a general threat to the west? Why not target a higher profile organisation?
Conspiracy theories aside, should we question the increasing numbers of incidences of online banking failures?
Are the Russians trying to undermine the west by warning us what they are capable of? ?
Should we be worried?

Perhaps they didn't see it as little gain.

If internal polls are to be believed, popularity was going down.

Success on the world stage could have rallied support internally and or provided a distraction from the economic issues at home.

I expect they were an easy target - poor security, easy to hack, lots of fall out for individual athletes.