On Friday, tech giant Microsoft claimed in a blog post that it had observed several attempts by state-backed Russian and North Korean hackers aiming to steal sensitive and valuable data from pharmaceutical companies and organizations conducting vaccine research. Although Microsoft claims the attacks were unsuccessful over the recent months, the cyber activity is concerning as leading health care companies come closer to developing an effective and safe vaccine. The US government found in July that Chinese state-backed hackers had also been targeting vaccine developers.
Microsoft states that most of the targets were located in Canada, France, India, South Korea, and the US, although specific companies have not been named. Microsoft has identified two of the groups so far, North Korea’s Lazarus Group and Russia’s Fancy Bear threat actor group. Most of the attacks seemingly aimed to steal the credentials of employees, likely to log in and uncover classified or valuable company information.
Read More: Russian, North Korean Hackers Target Vaccine Work
