The race to get COVID-19 vaccines as soon as possible is underway around the world and some are trying “shortcuts” based on computer intrusions against research centers who are more advanced in their development. All this supposedly because you already know the difficulty of trying this type of hacking. Or to be more precise, clarify which government or organization is behind it.
In a joint statement from the United States National Security Agency, the Canadian Cybersecurity Authority and the National Cybersecurity Center of the United Kingdom, warn of computer attacks on British scientists to fast-track the secrets of COVID-19 vaccines.
Western security agencies name the attackers and those responsible. APT29, a group of high-level hackers, well known in the field of cybersecurity with nicknames such as “The Dukes” or “Cozy Bear” and linked to Russian intelligence, would be behind the hacks.
The campaign would be broad-spectrum and targeted against scientists, universities, diplomatic agencies, or international health organizations, trying to steal intellectual property using «A variety of tools and techniques», from simple port scans, personal phishing and also advanced malware created for the occasion for data theft and extraction.
“It is completely unacceptable that the Russian intelligence services target those working to combat the coronavirus pandemic”, declared the British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab, while calling for the end of some “Irresponsible attacks” by the Russian intelligence services “Who have been collecting information on the development and research of the Covid-19 vaccine”, ensures.
Russia denies it. “We have no information on who might have targeted pharmaceutical companies and research centers in the UK.”said a Kremlin spokesman. “We can only say one thing: Russia has nothing to do with these attempts. We do not accept these allegations ».
COVID-19 vaccines
SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are underway around the world and will be the only measure with guarantees to end the pandemic, finish removing the world from confinements, end the social distance that we are not preparing humans and recover a true health and economic “normality”.
The vaccines (the fastest and the first available, although perhaps not 100% effective) are well advanced for what are usually the development deadlines of this type and half a dozen research centers are testing them in humans and promise to deliver them in a few months. Other developments, slower but more complete and reliable, would come later
Obviously, both are objects of great desire. In a truly “human” world (and not the one we live in) someone truly neutral would coordinate the efforts of the best scientists and laboratories in an effort for the common good and to bring the vaccine to the entire planet as soon as possible and at a cost accessible to all systems of health.
As is not the case and the economic and strategic interests are monumentalIt is not surprising that some government intends to seize the secrets of the most advanced developments. Of course, accusers like the NSA are not to be trusted because they have been spying on everything that has been moving on the planet for decades. Not just them. Americans, Russians, and Chinese (not to mention Israelis), have real cyber armies and connections to groups of hackers who surely have COVID-19 vaccines in mind. A pity; it is the world in which we have had to live.
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