Technology
Microsoft claims hackers from Russia and North Korea have targeted Covid-19 vaccine producers.
Cyberattacks rooted in North Korea and Russia have been targeted by organizations doing research into COVID-19 vaccines and therapies, Microsoft said in a recent blog post. The business claims the attacks were targeted at seven leading pharmaceutical firms and researchers in the United States, Canada, France, India and South Korea.
Of the targets, the majority are vaccine manufacturers that have COVID-19 vaccines at different levels of clinical trials, according to Tom Burt's blog post, Microsoft's corporate vice president of patient protection and trust. Microsoft did not name the entities or give specifics as to what information may have been hacked or compromised, but said it had alerted the organisations and provided assistance if the attacks had been successful.
According to Microsoft, most of the attacks were blocked by security protection.
Hackers used different tactics to carry out the attacks, according to the blog post, including brute force login attempts to steal login certificates, as well as spear-phishing attacks where hackers acted as job-seekers and as members of the World Health Organisation.
It's alarming that these threats have now fused as cyber attacks are being used to threaten health care organisations battling the pandemic, Burt said. We agree that these attacks are unwise and should be condemned by all democratic communities.
New coronavirus cases are on the rise across the US and other areas of the world, but there are some encouraging signs of vaccine production. Pfizer and BioNTech confirmed that their vaccine was 90% successful in the prevention of symptomatic COVID-19 in clinical trials. The preliminary data has not yet been reviewed by independent analysts, but experts found the news "highly promising."
And a vaccine candidate from Moderna is expected to release initial data soon.
