EU says hacked documents changed to be anti-vax

2021-01-17 16:20:47 GMT2021-01-18 00:20:47(Beijing Time) Sina English

Reuters

The exterior of European Medicines Agency building in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The European Union’s drug regulator said that COVID-19 vaccine documents stolen from its servers by hackers have been not only leaked to the web, but “manipulated.”

The European Medicines Agency said that an ongoing investigation showed that hackers obtained e-mails and documents from November related to the evaluation of experimental coronavirus vaccines.

The agency, which regulates drugs and medicines across the 27-member EU, had troves of confidential COVID-19 data as part of its vaccine approval process.

“Some of the correspondence has been manipulated by the perpetrators prior to publication in a way which could undermine trust in vaccines,” the agency said. “We have seen that some of the correspondence has been published not in its integrity and original form and, or with, comments or additions by the perpetrators.”

The agency did not explain exactly what information was altered — but cyber security experts say such practices are typical of disinformation campaigns launched by governments.

Italian cyber security firm Yarix said it found the 33-megabyte leak on a well-known underground forum with the title “Astonishing fraud! Evil Pfffizer! Fake vaccines!” It was apparently first posted on December 30 and later appeared on other sites, including on the dark web, the company said on its website.

Yarix said “the intention behind the leak by cyber criminals is certain: to cause significant damage to the reputation and credibility of EMA and Pfizer.”

Cyber security consultant Lukasz Olejnik said he believed the intention was far more broad.

“I fear this release has a significant potential of sowing distrust in the EMA process, the vaccines, and vaccination in Europe in general,” he said. “While it is unclear as to who may be behind this operation, it is evident that someone determined allocated resources to it.”

“This is an unprecedented operation targeting the validation of pharmaceutical material, with potentially broad negative effects on the health of Europeans if it leads to undermining trust in the vaccine.”

The EMA said law enforcement authorities are taking “necessary action” in response to the hack and a criminal investigation is ongoing.

It said given the devastating toll of the pandemic, there was an “urgent public health need to make vaccines available as soon as possible.”

The EMA insisted that despite that urgency, its decisions to recommend the green-lighting of vaccines were based “on the strength of the scientific evidence on a vaccine’s safety, quality and efficacy, and nothing else.”

(Agencies)

| PRINT | RSS