Indian vaccine makers SII and Bharat Biotech targeted by Chinese hackers
A Singapore-based cyber intelligence firm Cyfirma said that, there are few hackers from China origin recently targeted databases of Indian COVID vaccine makers -- Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech.
Both SII and Bharat Biotech are involved in producing Covid-19 vaccine. Cyfirma added that hacking campaigns believed to be originating from North Korean targeted yoga guru Ramdev's Patanjali group.
Cyfirma is backed by Goldman Sachs, based in Singapore and Tokyo, said Chinese hacking group APT10, also known as Stone Panda, had identified gaps and vulnerabilities in the IT infrastructure and supply chain software of Bharat Biotech and the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's largest vaccine maker.
"The real motivation here is actually exfiltrating intellectual property and getting a competitive advantage over Indian pharmaceutical companies," said Cyfirma Chief Executive Kumar Ritesh, formerly a top cyber official with British foreign intelligence agency MI6.
He said APT10 was actively targeting SII, which is making the AstraZeneca vaccine for many countries and will soon start bulk-manufacturing Novavax shots.
"In the case of Serum Institute, they have found a number of their public servers running weak web servers, these are vulnerable web servers," Ritesh said, referring to the hackers.
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