The race for the coronavirus vaccine has triggered an intelligence war where spies from China, Russia and Iran target American biotech companies and research universities in a bid to steal data, according to a new report.
American and British intelligence services have tracked efforts from several nations trying to spy on vaccine research as COVID-19 has infected more than 26million across the globe.
Chinese intelligence hackers tried to steal information from the University of North Carolina and other schools focusing on COVID-19 research, because their data protections are less robust than pharmaceutical companies, according to the New York Times.
Russian spies tried to get vaccine data from American universities and agencies in Canada and Britain, according to espionage efforts detected by British electronic surveillance agency G.C.H.Q. monitoring international fiber optic cables.
Iran also drastically amped up action to steal vaccine research and the increased threats forced the US to increase its espionage tracking efforts.
Some of the targeted American biotech companies include Gilead Sciences, Novavax and Moderna.
So far no corporation or university has announced any data thefts from publicly identified hacking efforts, officials say.
But some hacking attempts succeeded in penetrating defenses to get inside computer networks, according to one American government official.
Only two teams of hackers, one each from Russia and China, have been publicly identified.
Intelligence officials say Chinese and Russian hackers are testing weaknesses everyday.
Now the US is raising protections of universities and corporations doing advanced vaccine work and NATO, which usually tracks Russian tank movement and terrorist cells, is scrutinizing Kremlin moves to steal vaccine research, a Western official briefed on the intelligence said.
'It would be surprising if they were not trying to steal the most valuable biomedical research going on right now,' top Justice Department official John C Demers said of China last month at an event held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Valuable from a financial point of view and invaluable from a geopolitical point of view,' he added.
The race for the vaccine for the virus that has infected more than 6million and killed more than 188,000 in the US alone is not so different to the Space Race where the Soviet Union and the United States depended on spies to catch up in their race to the moon.
American intelligence learned about China’s hacking efforts in early February, according to current and former American officials.
China has been tracked using information from the World Health Organization to guide vaccine spying attempts in the US and Europe and tried hacking into the University of North Carolina and other universities.
The FBI warned UNC officials in recent weeks about hacking attempts, two people familiar with the matter said.
The Chinese hackers tried to break into the computer networks of the school’s epidemiology department but did not infiltrate them.
The efforts are only escalating as researchers share more vaccine candidates and antiviral treatments for peer review, a government official says.
UNC spokeswoman Leslie Minton says the school was invested in 'around-the-clock monitoring' to guard against 'persistent threat attacks from state sponsored organizations.'
This article has been adapted from its original source.
