EMA claimed that hackers leaked Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine's data. The health agency also believed that the cybercriminals also changed the information contained in the document to undermine the public's trust.

Experts Discover That Hackers Breach Pfizer COVID-19's Data, Claiming That Cybercriminals Alter the Documents
(Photo : Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - DECEMBER 17: A nurse shows a container of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine after it was used to vaccinate the first five staff members at Roseland Community Hospital on December 17, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois. Roseland Community Hospital is situated in the Roseland neighborhood on the city's far south side. The neighborhood's population is 95 percent black. The COVID-19 death rate among black residents in Chicago is nearly double that of the city’s white residents.

The European Medicines Agency focuses on reviewing and approving COVID-19 vaccines in the European Union. The health agency also monitors, evaluates, and supervises any new drugs and medicines introduced to the EU.

"The ongoing investigation of the cyberattack on EMA revealed that some of the unlawfully accessed documents related to COVID-19 medicines and vaccines have been leaked on the internet," said the agency via Bleeping Computer.

What the leaked COVID-19 data contains

EMA stated that the leak includes internal and confidential email correspondence of Pfizer from November, which relates to the company's COVID-19 vaccine's evaluation processes.

"Some of the correspondence has been manipulated by the perpetrators prior to publication in a way which could undermine trust in vaccines," added the company.

Experts Discover That Hackers Breach Pfizer COVID-19's Data, Claiming That Cybercriminals Alter the Documents
(Photo : Photo by Sean Gallup - Pool / Getty Images)
POTSDAM, GERMANY - JANUARY 05: A doctor holds up a bottle of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19 at the vaccination center at the Metropolis-Halle events center on the first day the center began operation during the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic on January 05, 2021 in Potsdam, Germany. Vaccination centers are beginning operation this week in several German states with others to follow in coming weeks. Delays in shipments of the vaccine has postponed vaccine center openings in some cases.

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The health agency also confirmed that the critical documents were leaked online last December of 2020. Aside from the email correspondence, the leak also includes EMA peer review comments, email screenshots, PowerPoint, PDF, and Word documents.

If you want to see the exact screenshot, you can click here. Once you view it, you'll see that the hackers' intent was to highlight that the Pfizer vaccine was fake. The cyber attackers claimed that they acquired Pfizer's big data scam.

Experts claim that COVID-19 vaccine hacks are diabolical

EMA confirmed that the leaked information was manipulated to weaken people's trust in the vaccines. The agency also announced that it previously launched a joint investigation in collaboration with law enforcement and several other relevant entities.

On the other hand, the giant tech firms BioNTech and Pfizer confirmed that the hackers indeed breached their COVID-19 vaccines' documents, which are store in EMA's servers.

Since this is a serious matter, security experts said that the breaches involving COVID-19 are diabolical, as stated in Healthcare IT News' latest report. They explained that although the pandemic seems to get worse, hackers still consider the novel coronavirus as a great asset for their gains.

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Written by: Giuliano de Leon.

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