China and Russia are now reportedly behind two different cyberattacks that had happened last year over at the European Medicines Agency. This cyberattack had been said to compromise certain documents that were related to COVID-19 vaccines as well as their treatments.
COVID-19 vaccination information breach
According to the article by Gizmodo, this is according to sources that are familiar with the supposed ongoing investigation who had spoken with the Dutch newspaper called De Volkskrant as reported by Reuters. Back in December, the said Amsterdam-based European drug regulator had released a public statement disclosing a particular breach and launched a certain investigation along with Dutch and European law enforcement officials. EMA still hasn't released the name of any suspected culprits as well as their possible motives.
It was noted that China-backed hackers actually attacked during the first half of 2020, while Russia had then reportedly followed some time later that year. They were said to steal documents that pertained to the COVID-19 vaccines and medicines that were then later leaked online according to the reports of De Volkskrant.
Chinese and Russian hackers
Chinese spies were pinpointed to have reportedly hacked into the EMA systems through a German university. This was according to the information of the outlet's source as noted by Reuters. Meanwhile, over in Russia, the intruders were able to gain access to the EMA systems for about a month even after exploiting certain flaws in the whole agency's two-step verification process as well as some other cybersecurity safeguards.
The cybercriminals were reportedly most interested in both the shipping destinations and the purchase sizes for both BioNTech and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Just shortly after the EMA disclosure, both BioNTech and Pfizer had confirmed that certain documents that related to their vaccine had actually been "unlawfully accessed."
COVID-19 Vaccine Information Stolen by Chinese and Russian Hackers: Shipping Destinations and Purchase Sizes Targeted
Also Read: COVID-19 Vaccine Update: UK Rolls Out Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine, PM Issues New National Lockdown
EMA gives statement on breach
The EMA also confirms that the investigation still remains ongoing but has declined to give further comment, according to Reuters. An EMA spokesperson by the name of Monika Benstetter noted that a criminal investigation by the official law enforcement authorities as well as other entities is now ongoing and the EMA is also of course cooperating fully.
Officials over in China and Russia have also historically denied these state-sponsored collisions with the hacking campaigns regardless of the given evidence. However, there are reportedly plenty of other security incidents that need to be pointed out in order to make the latest news more unsurprising.
Even in only a few past weeks and months, there was said to be a massive user data breach over at Microsoft that had been directly linked to certain China-backed hackers. This is on top of the recent SolarWinds hack, in which certain Russian spies were able to compromise systems for about 18,000 private and public entities. This even included a number of government agencies.
Related Article: Astrazeneca Declines to Disclose Quantity of COVID-19 Vaccines in UK, Says It Will 'Imminently' Hit 2M Weekly
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian Buenconsejo
