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| North Korea is trying to infiltrate a pharmaceutical company to steal the COVID-19 vaccine |
Reuters reported on Friday, citing two sources familiar with the matter, that North Korean hackers were suspected of trying to break into the systems of British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in the past few weeks while the company was competing to launch a vaccine. Against the (Covid-19) virus.
The source said: Hackers disguised themselves as recruits on LinkedIn and WhatsApp and contacted AstraZeneca employees with fake job offers. Then they sent documents that allegedly contained a malware job description to gain access to the victim's computer.
A source said: The hacking attempt targeted a "wide range of people", including participants in the (Covid-19) research, but it is believed that the desired goals were not achieved.
Discuss the (anonymous) source the non-public information. According to the source, the tools and techniques used in the attack indicate that it was part of an ongoing piracy activity, which US officials and cybersecurity researchers have attributed to North Korea.
According to the three individuals who investigated the attack, the campaign had previously targeted defense companies and media organizations, but had targeted targets linked to (Covid-19) in recent weeks.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, cyberattacks against health officials, vaccines, and pharmaceutical companies have exploded as government-backed criminal hacking organizations vie for the latest research and information on the pandemic.
Western officials say they can sell stolen information for huge profits, extort victims, or give foreign governments a valuable strategic advantage in trying to control a disease that has killed 1.4 million people. People all over the world.
Microsoft said earlier this month that it had seen two groups of North Korean hackers targeting vaccine developers in several countries and was expected to "send information with incorrect job descriptions." Microsoft has not identified a target organization.
Reuters reported earlier that hackers from Iran, China and Russia had tried to infiltrate major pharmaceutical companies and even the World Health Organization earlier this year. Tehran, Beijing and Moscow have denied the accusations.
US prosecutors accused North Korea of being behind the most daring and destructive cyber attacks in the world, including: Hackers hacked into Sony Pictures email messages and leaked them in 2014 and stole $ 81 million from the central bank in Bangladesh in 2016. They launched the ransomware. We'll cry in 2017.
Pyongyang described the allegations as part of Washington's attempts to destroy its image.