LONDON (AP) – The European Union’s drug regulator said on Friday that documents from the COVID-19 vaccine stolen from its servers by hackers were 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 in November related to the evaluation of experimental coronavirus vaccines. The agency, which regulates drugs and medicines in all 27 EU members, had a lot of confidential data from COVID-19 as part of its vaccine approval process.
“Part of the correspondence was handled by the perpetrators before publication in a way that could undermine confidence in vaccines,” said the Dutch agency.
“We saw that part of the correspondence was not published in its entirety and original form and, or with, comments or additions by the authors.”
The agency did not explain exactly what information was changed – but cybersecurity experts say such practices are typical of disinformation campaigns launched by governments.
Italian cybersecurity company Yarix said it found the 33-megabyte leak in a well-known clandestine forum entitled “Amazing fraud! Evil Pfffizer! Fake vaccines! “Apparently, it was first posted on December 30 and then appeared on other sites, including the dark web, the company said on its website.
Yarix said “The intent behind the leak by cyber criminals is certain: to cause significant damage to the reputation and credibility of EMA and Pfizer.”
Cybersecurity consultant Lukasz Olejnik said he believed the intention was much broader.
“I fear that this release has significant potential to sow distrust in the EMA process, in vaccines and vaccination in Europe in general,” he said. “While it is not clear who may be behind this operation, it is clear that someone has determined resources allocated to it.”
“This is an unprecedented operation aimed at the validation of pharmaceutical material, with potentially wide-ranging negative effects on the health of Europeans if it undermines confidence in the vaccine,” added Olejnik.
The EMA said law enforcement officials are taking “necessary steps” in response to the hack and a criminal investigation is underway.
He said that, due to the devastating number of the pandemic, there was an “urgent public health need to make vaccines available to EU citizens as quickly as possible”. The EMA insisted that, despite this urgency, its decisions to recommend the green light for vaccines were based “on the strength of scientific evidence about the safety, quality and efficacy of a vaccine, and nothing more”.
The Amsterdam-based EMA was strongly criticized by Germany and other EU member countries in December for not approving vaccines against the virus more quickly. The agency issued its first recommendation for the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines weeks after the injection was approved in Britain, the United States, Canada and elsewhere.
EMA recommended a second vaccine, from Moderna, for use earlier this month. A third photo taken by AstraZeneca and Oxford is being analyzed by the agency.
–
AP technology writer Frank Bajak contributed from Boston.
__
Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at:
http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine
https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak