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Chinese hackers have stolen information from Spanish laboratories working on a vaccine for COVID-19, the newspaper El País reported on Friday.
The report came as pharmaceutical companies around the world rushed to produce an effective jab to counter a virus that has now killed more than 940,000 people and infected 30 million.
It was unclear what information was collected, when it happened, or how important it was, and the newspaper cites sources familiar with the attack.
Quoted in the article, the head of Spain’s secret service, Paz Esteban, said that the hackers had mounted “a particularly virulent campaign targeting laboratories working on the search for a vaccine” not only in Spain but elsewhere.
Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Esteban, who heads the CNI’s intelligence services, said there was a “qualitative and quantitative” increase in attacks during the confinement, and that the hackers targeted “sensitive sectors such as the health and the pharmacist “.
Such attacks have multiplied in other countries involved in efforts to develop a vaccine, prompting an exchange of information between their respective spy services, he said.
Most of the attacks were carried out by hackers from China and Russia, often from state organizations, but also by criminal organizations and universities trading in hacked data, security sources said.
But the attack in which Spanish data was stolen was launched by Chinese hackers, they said.
The CNI was not immediately available to comment on the report.
In July, a court in the US state of Washington charged two Chinese nationals with stealing terabytes of data from hundreds of computer systems around the world, in some cases on behalf of Chinese government agencies.
The hacking, which took place over a decade, had most recently involved searching for vulnerabilities in the systems of companies that develop COVID-19 vaccines, technology tests and treatments, the US Department of Justice said.
Spain was one of the 11 countries named in the indictment as the target of the attacks.
For more news on the new coronavirus, click here.
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For more information on COVID-19, call the DOH hotline: (02) 86517800 local 1149/1150.
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