IBM’s cybersecurity division discovered a series of cyberattacks targeting companies and government organizations linked to the distribution of coronavirus vaccines around the world.
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Both IBM and DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said that the attacks appear to be intended to steal credentials to corporate executives and officials of global organizations involved in the refrigeration process necessary to protect vaccine doses.
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Cyber attackers “were working to gain access to how the vaccine is shipped, stored, kept cold and delivered,” said Nick Rossmann, who heads IBM’s global threat intelligence team. “We believe that whoever is behind this wanted to be able to understand the whole process of the cold chain,” he added, quoted by the New York newspaper.
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Many of these attacks took the form of ‘spear phishing’ emails posing as an executive at a major Chinese company, Haier Biomedical, which is a legitimate participant in the distribution chain. The email says “we want to place an order with your company” and includes a draft contract that contains malware that would give attackers access to the network.
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According to cybersecurity researchers at IBM, these attacks appeared sophisticated enough to be simple electronic hacks and are more aimed at a foreign government sponsored initiative, although they have not been able to identify which country could be behind it.
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