North Korea-linked hackers targeted J&J, Novavax in hunt for COVID research

Boryung

02/12/2020 12:35

By Raphael Satter and Jack Stubbs
    WASHINGTON/LONDON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Suspected North Korean
hackers have recently tried to break into at least nine health
organizations, including pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson
 JNJ.N  and vaccine developer Novavax Inc  NVAX.O , revealing a
broader effort to target key players in the race to develop
treatments for COVID-19.
    Four people who have investigated the attacks said the spate
of hacking attempts began in September, and used web domains
mimicking online login portals to try and trick staff at the
targeted organisations into revealing their passwords.
    The hacking attempts included a bid to get inside British
drugmaker and vaccine developer AstraZeneca  AZN.L , which
Reuters first reported last week was in Pyongyang's crosshairs.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2IC2QU
    North Korea has not confirmed any coronavirus infections,
but South Korea's National Intelligence Service has said an
outbreak there cannot be ruled out as the country had trade and
people-to-people exchanges with China - the source of the
pandemic - before shutting the border in late January.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2A32LU
    A Reuters review of publicly-available Internet records show
that web domains and servers used by the attackers have
previously been identified by the U.S. government and security
researchers as part of a North Korean hacking campaign.   
    Other targets identified by the sources, most of whom spoke
on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter,
included the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, the
University of Tuebingen in Germany, and four South Korean
pharmaceutical firms: Genexine Inc  095700.KQ , Boryung Pharma
Co Ltd  003850.KS , Shin Poong Pharm Co Ltd and Celltrion Inc
 068270.KS .
    Reuters was not able to determine if any of the hacking
attempts, some of which were reported by the Wall Street Journal
earlier on Wednesday, were successful.
    North Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York did
not immediately respond to a request for comment. A message sent
to an email address used by the hackers was not returned.
Pyongyang, which has no direct line of contact for foreign
media, has previously denied carrying out cyberattacks.
    Novavax spokeswoman Amy Speak said her company was "aware of
this threat" and was coordinating with government agencies and
private cybersecurity experts.
    "We are confident we can continue to progress with our
COVID-19 vaccine candidate without disruption and that these
incursions do not pose a risk to the integrity of our data," she
said.
    A spokeswoman for the University of Tuebingen said staff
were repeatedly targeted by hackers but all recent attacks "were
detected and blocked by our IT-Team at an very early stage, no
damage occurred."  
    Genexine said it was aware of a malicious website
impersonating a company login portal but had not recorded any
direct attacks against its staff. Celltrion said it had recently
identified and successfully blocked a number of hacking attempts
as part of its regular security work.
    Johnson & Johnson, Beth Israel, and Shin Poong declined to
comment. Boryung did not immediately respond to a request for
comment. 
    Simon Choi, an expert at South Korean cybersecurity group
IssueMakersLab, said he had attributed the hacking attempts to
North Korea and it was clear the attackers were specifically
hunting for information about COVID-19. 
    In the case of South Korea's Celltrion, for example, he said
the spies tried to break into an email account set up to field
queries about Remsima, a monoclonal antibody which is being
studied as a treatment for severe cases of the disease.
    A person familiar with the matter said that some of the fake
login pages had been spotted by security experts at Microsoft
Corp  MSFT.O , helping prompt an alert the company issued last
month about the threat of North Korean espionage to COVID-19
researchers. 
    Microsoft stopped short of naming the targeted organizations
in its Nov. 13 blog post, but said they were "leading
pharmaceutical companies and vaccine researchers" in countries
including the United States and South Korea.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2HY3B2
    Lawmakers in South Korea also appear to have alluded to the
digital espionage campaign, saying last week that its
intelligence service thwarted attempts by Pyongyang to hack into
South Korean companies developing coronavirus vaccines, although
they provided no further details.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2ID043
    Officially, North Korean authorities have reported no cases
of coronavirus in their country, making it the only non-island
nation - aside from Turkmenistan - to do so. But North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un raised eyebrows last month when he was quoted
by state media as ordering officials to intensify their
anti-coronavirus work.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2I2018 
    Digital espionage against health bodies, vaccine scientists
and drugmakers has intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic as
state-backed hacking groups scramble to obtain the latest
research and information about the outbreak.
    Reuters has previously documented how hackers linked to
Iran, Vietnam, South Korea, China and Russia have on separate
occasions been accused of trying to steal information about the
virus and its potential treatments.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2BP1AO  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2CQ02V
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N2F20CB  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N2EN1AY
    Western officials say any stolen information could give
foreign governments a valuable strategic advantage as they fight
to contain a disease.

    <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
EXCLUSIVE-Suspected North Korean hackers targeted COVID vaccine
maker AstraZeneca -sources     urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2IC2QU
N.Korea's Kim orders tightening of anti-virus measures amid
global pandemic -KCNA      urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2I2018 
N.Korea accuses U.S. of hurting its image with cyber threat
warning     urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2DB2HI
S.Korea foils N.Korea attempt to hack COVID-19 vaccine makers   
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2ID043
North Korean, Russian hackers target COVID-19 researchers
-Microsoft     urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2HY3B2
Burdened by sanctions, North Korea sees coronavirus threaten
economic lifelines     urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2A32LU
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
 (Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in NEW YORK and Joyce
Lee and Sangmi Cha in SEOUL, South Korea; Editing by Chris
Sanders and Edward Tobin)
 ((jack.stubbs@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging:
jack.stubbs.thomsonreuters.com@thomsonreuters.net))