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NEW DELHI: A Chinese state-backed hacking group has in recent weeks targeted the IT systems of two Indian vaccine manufacturers whose coronavirus injections are being used in the country’s immunization campaign, the firm said. cyber intelligence Cyfirma told Reuters.
Rivals China and India have sold or gifted COVID-19 injections to many countries. India produces more than 60 percent of all vaccines sold in the world.
Cyfirma, backed by Singapore and Tokyo-based Goldman Sachs, said Chinese hacking group APT10, also known as Stone Panda, had identified gaps and vulnerabilities in Bharat Biotech’s IT infrastructure and supply chain software. and the Serum Institute of India (SII). the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer.
“The real motivation here is actually to exfiltrate intellectual property and gain a competitive advantage over Indian pharmaceutical companies,” said Cyfirma Chief Executive Kumar Ritesh, formerly a senior cyber official at the British foreign intelligence agency MI6.
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He said APT10 was actively targeting IBS, which is manufacturing the AstraZeneca vaccine for many countries and will soon start manufacturing Novavax injections in bulk.
“In the case of Serum Institute, they have found several of their public servers running weak web servers, these are vulnerable web servers,” Ritesh said, referring to the hackers.
“They have talked about a weak web application, they are also talking about a weak content management system. It is quite alarming.”
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China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SII and Bharat Biotech declined to comment. The government-run Computer Emergency Response Team of India, with whom Cyfirma said it had shared its findings, did not immediately comment.
The US Department of Justice said in 2018 that APT10 had acted in partnership with China’s Ministry of State Security.
Microsoft said in November that it had detected cyber attacks from Russia and North Korea targeting COVID-19 vaccine companies in India, Canada, France, South Korea and the United States.
North Korean hackers also tried to break into the systems of British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, Reuters reported.
READ: North Korean hackers attacked vaccine technology: South Korean spy agency
Ritesh, whose firm tracks the activities of about 750 cybercriminals and monitors nearly 2,000 hacking campaigns using a tool called a decryptor, said it was not yet clear what information related to APT10 vaccines may have been accessed from Indian companies.
Bharat Biotech’s COVAXIN injection, developed with the state Indian Council of Medical Research, will be exported to many countries, including Brazil.
US pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE said in December that documents related to the development of its COVID-19 vaccine had been “illegally accessed” in a cyber attack on the European drug regulator.
Relations between nuclear-armed neighbors China and India soured last June when 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed in a fight on the Himalayan border. Recent talks have eased the tension.
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