North Korean Hackers Reportedly After Pfizer Vaccine Data

The South Korean secret service NIS has been registering an increase in hacker attacks from neighbouring North Korea for months. The hackers should now focus primarily on pharmaceutical companies – and they should target vaccine prescriptions.

This emerges from a report by the South Korean news agency Yonhap. It is explicitly stated that the hacker attacks from the north have increased significantly. They were “mostly unsuccessful”, but it is now certain that the attackers are primarily targeting vaccine data from Pfizer.

Pfizer is the main supplier of the vaccine in South Korea. The government had secured vaccine doses for around 79 million people. Attackers are said to have recently tried to infiltrate the computer systems of South Korean pharmaceutical manufacturers as well as politicians and authorities. Anyone who has had to do with the deal between South Korea and Pfizer should therefore be a target.

North Korea wants research results

North Korea’s ruler Kim Jong Un is said to have been vaccinated against Covid-19 with a vaccine from China. Now, the Yonhap news agency reports, Kim Jong Un wants to get valuable research results and vaccine data – perhaps to sell them in exchange for hard currency.

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The allegations that you send your state hackers to get the data is not new. There was a similar suspicion in November last year that vaccine developer Astra Zeneca was exposed to an attack from North Korea. The Reuters news agency had researched a number of interesting things about this attack. Accordingly, the North Koreans had turned to Astra-Zeneca employees via LinkedIn with alleged job offers and tried to cheer them on Trojans. This attempt was quickly discovered.