In a report released Thursday, IT group IBM revealed that a series of cyber attacks had targeted the distribution of vaccines, which must be stored and transported at very low temperatures.
“Our team recently discovered a global phishing campaign targeting organizations associated with the cold chain linked to Covid-19,” wrote in a blog post Claire Zaboeva and Melissa Frydrych, analysts for IBM X- Force, a working group dedicated to cybersecurity.
The vaccine developed by Pfizer and the German company BioNTech, which received the green light for marketing in the United Kingdom on Wednesday, must not be exposed to temperatures above -70 ° C to ensure its effectiveness.
According to IBM, the Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs, a service of the European Commission, was one of the targets of the attacks, along with European and Asian companies involved in the supply chain, whose names no. have not been disclosed.
To trap their victims, the hackers would have used the method of harpooning, or “spear phishing”, which consists of posing as a legitimate actor in order to recover confidential and sensitive data from individuals or organizations.
The latter are tricked into providing passwords or credentials in emails, which are then exploited by malware.
Cybercriminals have also tried to attack several pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines – Americans Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, Britain’s AstraZeneca and South Korean laboratories – according to the Wall Street Journal.
Spanish laboratories have also reportedly been attacked by Chinese cybercriminals, the El Pais newspaper reported in September.
Cold storage giant Americold last month reported a hack into its computer systems to the US stock market policeman without specifying whether the attack was related to the group’s role in vaccine storage.
Motivations
In its report, IBM specifies that it is not in a position to say who is behind the hacks, but assures that their nature and sophistication are reminiscent of the methods of a state actor.
For Mark Kedgley of New Net Technologies, a cybersecurity software provider, “Intellectual property related to consumer pharmaceuticals has immense value and is a prime prize for cybercriminals.”
“In the case of vaccines against Covid-19, this falls under piracy at the level of the nation-state,” he said.
The countries whose names come up frequently among experts are Russia, China and North Korea, although no formal proof of their involvement has been established.
The Russian anti-virus publisher Kaspersky recalls in this regard that identity theft techniques, for example, “or e-mail addresses hosted in a .ru domain (…) can be used to attempt to deflect suspicion about the identity, and in particular the nationality of the attackers. “
Financial motivations cannot be ruled out given the lucrative aspect of marketing vaccines.
“This series of attacks is not at all surprising,” said Brett Callow of Emsisoft, a company specializing in cybersecurity. “State and non-state actors try to use any situation to gain advantage, whether political or financial. It would have been inconceivable that Covid-related efforts were not targeted.”
Vigilance
The American authorities are in any case taking the threat very seriously as evidenced by the reaction to IBM’s report from the federal cybersecurity agency, CISA.
“CISA encourages all organizations involved in the storage and transport of vaccines to strengthen their protections, particularly for cold storage operations, and to remain vigilant against any activity in this sector,” said in a statement sent to the ‘AFP Josh Corman, researcher for this agency under the supervision of the Department of Homeland Security.
The laboratories also claim to remain on their guard.
“Most large pharmaceutical groups have the cybersecurity resources to detect and protect against malicious code,” said Marene Allison, security manager at Johnson & Johnson, during a video conference hosted by Aspen Thursday Institute.
“Unfortunately, this is not the case for everyone in the healthcare industry,” she added.
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