An attack on the Nobel Organization’s computer systems is the most likely cause of last year’s leak of the name of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, María Corina Machado, according to the results of an investigation.
An individual or a state actor may have gained unauthorized access through a cyber breach, the Norwegian Nobel Institute said on Friday (30), after completing an internal investigation with the support of security authorities.
The leak triggered an unusual wave of bets on Machado on the Polymarket platform, a few hours before she was announced as the winner in October. The Venezuelan opposition leader was not considered one of the frontrunners for the 2025 prize.
Take advantage of the stock market rally!
“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 grants the prize.
Read more: Norway investigates unusual volume of bets on Nobel Peace Prize winner
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.
Diverse national and foreign entities, including the NSM national security authority, assisted in the investigation.
The institute had previously said that cyber espionage was the most likely cause of the wave of suspicious bets, and that an internal leak of the name was “unlikely” — something Harpviken said on Friday had been examined and about which he is “convinced that this is not the explanation.”
A trader, under the username dirtycup, bet about US$70,000 on a Machado victory and ended up making approximately US$30,000 in profit, according to data on Polymarket’s site.
The leak, the atypical bets and the subsequent investigation drew even more attention to last year’s prize, which had already been the target of great controversy.
Repeated statements by President Donald Trump that he should be awarded for ending numerous wars contributed to the politicization of the prize. His frustration led, in part, to the deterioration of relations between Norway and the United States — a key security ally. Earlier this month, the Nordic country reacted with astonishment to the news that Machado handed her medal over to Trump.
Trump, in a message to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, linked his demands to take control of Greenland — the territory of neighboring Denmark — to the fact that he had not received the Nobel.
The prize 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 the target of 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 have, of course, conducted a very careful mapping of all possible breaches.”
“There are areas where we believe our procedures are quite fail-safe, and there are others where we see that we can reinforce our routines,” he said, adding that revealing any measures “would not be very prudent from a security standpoint.”
The NSM is responsible for protecting Norway’s digital infrastructure and strengthening the country’s ability to counter espionage, sabotage, terrorism and hybrid threats.
The authority also helped the Nobel Institute in 2010, when it suffered a major hacking attack after the prize was awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, VG reported at the time.
In December 2021, a cyberattack struck the Nobel Prize websites in Oslo and Stockholm during the award ceremonies. The following month, the institute asked the Norwegian police to investigate the so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which it described as “serious,” though it said there were no suspects.
© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.
