The European Medicines Agency (EMA) revealed on January 12 that some of the data related to the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which was stolen from servers in December, was leaked onto the dark web. The EMA is responsible for reviewing and approving COVID-19 vaccines, as well as for evaluating, monitoring and supervising any new medicines imported into the EU.
Following the attack, Pfizer/BioNTech issued a joint statement confirming that hackers had gained access to documents related to COVID-19 research. Specifically, they stated the following in their statement:
“Today, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) was informed that it had suffered a cyberattack and that certain documents related to the regulatory submission for Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, which were stored on an EMA server, were compromised.”
Now, the Agency said in its statement: “The ongoing investigation into the cyberattack on EMA has revealed that some of the documents related to the COVID-19 medicines and vaccines that have been compromised were leaked online. The necessary action is being taken by law enforcement authorities. The Agency continues to fully support the criminal investigation into the data breach and to notify any additional entities and individuals whose documents and personal data may have been subject to unauthorized access.”
EMA also pointed out that the European medicines regulatory network is operating normally and that COVID-19 evaluation and approval timelines are not affected by the safety.
In late December, security experts from threat intelligence firm Cyble discovered that several documents related to the COVID-19 vaccine, allegedly stolen from the EMA, had been leaked onto the dark web. Cyble began monitoring documents shared on one of the Russian-language forums. The links to the documents were shared by a new profile that was used only for the alleged data leak.
The documents include the alleged evaluation report of the COVID-19 vaccine, along with the summary report on the drug's circulation and effectiveness.
National agencies consider organizations involved in vaccine research to be a “strategic target” for gathering information about the ongoing pandemic. In late November, Reuters news agency revealed that COVID-19 vaccine company AstraZeneca was targeted by hackers linked to North Korea.
Additionally, organizations , such as Johnson & Johnson, are seeing a surge in cyberattacks carried out by state-sponsored hackers during the pandemic.
Also in December, IBM X-Force experts warned of cybercriminals actively targeting organizations involved in the cold chain . Many have also targeted organizations involved in COVID-19 vaccine research and delivery since the outbreak of the pandemic.
