Hackers target vaccine supply chain

The US giant IBM recently reported the targeting of several companies and organizations essential to the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines by hackers, as part of a “global phishing campaign”.

Meticulously crafted spam emails

At the end of last week, IBM published a note reporting attempts to phishing, or phishing, targeting the ” cold chain »Vaccines, a process necessary to keep doses extremely low when they leave production sites. The company’s cybersecurity unit explained that it detected a group of hackers using meticulously crafted e-mails, including sent on behalf ofHaier Biomedical, a Chinese supplier specializing in the transport of this type of compound.

According to the analyst Claire Zaboeva, who was involved in writing the report, the hackers knew the make, model and price of various refrigeration units. Which suggests that ” the individuals behind this campaign were fully aware of the products involved in the supply chain aimed at providing vaccines to end the global pandemic. “

A secure cold chain is fundamental for the distribution of vaccines designed by companies such as Pfizer and BioNTech, which must be stored at -70 ° C to maintain their effectiveness.

About ten targeted organizations

IBM specified that the fake emails, inviting to download infected attachments allowing hackers to then recover confidential information, such as identifiers to connect to the servers of the companies concerned, had been sent to a dozen different organizations.

These included the General Directorate of Taxation and Customs Union of the European Commission, helping to establish rules on the importation of vaccines, as well as companies involved in the manufacture of solar panels, used to power vaccine storage units in hot countries, and petrochemicals used for ice making dried.

Always according to Zaboeva, there is no shortage of potential suspects, given that the search for a way to quickly distribute a vaccine to save the economy ” is a priority for nations around the world “.

Interpol on alert

Following the publication of theIBM, Interpol declared to have alerted the police of its 194 member countries to the possibility that criminal networks targeting vaccines, both physically, by trying to seize doses of vaccines to resell them on the black market, and electronically .

” As governments prepare to roll out vaccines, criminal organizations plan to infiltrate or disrupt supply chains », Declared in particular Jurgen Stock, secretary general of the organization.