Hackers alter stolen regulatory data to sow distrust of the COVID-19 vaccine

Last month, the makers of one of the most promising coronavirus vaccines reported this Hackers stole classified documents They have applied to the regulatory body of the European Union. On Friday, news emerged that the hackers had forged and posted some of the content of the requests online.

Studies of the BNT162b2 vaccine developed by drug companies Pfizer and BioNTech have found that 95% efficiency In preventing COVID-19 and is consistently effective across demographics of age, gender, race and ethnicity. Despite the near universal consensus among scientists that the vaccine is safe, some critics worry that it is not. Hackers seem to be trying to stir up these unsupported fears.

Data illegally accessed by hackers “included internal / confidential email correspondence dating from November, related to evaluations of COVID-19 vaccines”, Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency He said in a statement. “Some of the correspondence was manipulated by the perpetrators before being published in a way that could undermine confidence in vaccines.”

Friday’s statement did not say where the documents were published or how they were forged. An EMA spokeswoman said in an email: “We have seen that some of the correspondence has not been published in its original form and / or with comments or additions by the perpetrators.” She refused to go into details. Pfizer officials declined to comment. BioNTech representatives could not be reached immediately.

to me Espionage By Empoli, the Italy-based security firm Yarex, more than 33 megabytes of data from the EMA hack was posted to a well-known forum on the dark web site in late December. The Dark Web Post titled “Amazing Scam! Evil Pfizer! Fake Vaccines!” Included a link to a forum on a Russian-language site.

“There are no specific elements that would allow assertion that the recovered data is only a part of the leak or if it actually includes all the stolen data in the breach,” Yarix’s post, published on Monday, was read after it ran via Google Translate. “On the one hand, the intent behind the leak by cybercriminals is proven: to cause significant damage to the reputation and credibility of EMA and Pfizer.”

Confidential COVID-19 vaccine data has been a hot commodity for hackers since the start of the pandemic. The EMA disclosure is among the first – if not The First accessed vaccine documents are published.