In a shocking update, European Medicines Agency has revealed that the stolen Covid-19 data has been manipulated and has been leaked online in an attempt to devalue trust amongst the common folk towards the vaccine.
The cyberattack on EMA has a running investigation which found that confidential documents related to the evaluation process of Covid-19 vaccines had been breached and was reported as ‘manipulated’ when found online on the digital platform. EMA has started this act as an attempt to subvert the trust towards the vaccine in people.
The cyberattack was reported last month by EMA which reported that the documents had been maneuvered by hackers and were uploaded days prior to the publication by the rightful owners in order to create a sense of panic and doubt in the public. Following the hacking incident with EMA, World Health Organization, UK’s National Cyber Security Centre and Microsoft have issued warnings against the alleged cybercriminals involved in the hacking attack against the pharmaceutical and healthcare firms regarding Covid-19 vaccines.
The vaccine researchers and pharmaceutical companies which fell victim to the hacking belonged to India, United States, France, South Korea, and Canada were traced back Strontium, an actor hailing from Russia, and two bad actors Zinc and Cerium from North Korea. BioNTech, a vaccine manufacturer in collaboration with Pfizer reported that its regulatory submission was intruded upon and accessed during the cyberattack. This incident took place in December following the attack on EMA.
Many other vaccine handlers like Dr. Reddy’s who has Sputnik vaccine from Russia have also reported that it was also a victim of the hacking on EMA. Microsoft, in November, detected and reported the intrusion by the Russian and North Korean actors who tried to access the covid-19 vaccine informational documents. This incident has been referred to by EMA as ill-timed as the whole wide world is undergoing the vaccination drives and thus is an attempt to create apprehensiveness amongst the recipients.
