...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...
n hackers have reportedly launched coordinated cyberattacks against at least six drug makers working on developing coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...vaccines and therapeutics in America, the United Kingdom, and South Korea.
In mid-September, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned U.S. politicians that foreign hackers, particularly from China and Russia, are trying to steal U.S. coronavirus vaccine research and testing technology and engaging in efforts to disrupt the American government’s response to the ongoing pandemic.
The U.S. intelligence community’s annual Worldwide Threat Assessment has long listed North Korea’s cyber capabilities as a threat to America.
Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal revealed Wednesday that the attackers wanted sensitive coronavirus research information that the rogue North Korean regime could weaponize or sell on the black market.
"It wasn’t known whether the hackers succeeded in swiping useful information. But North Korea has coordinated attacks on the six companies since August, the people said," the Journal noted, adding:
The [potentially hacked] firms include previously unreported targets in the U.S.: Johnson & Johnson and Maryland-based Novavax Inc., which are both working on experimental vaccines, the people said. The list also includes three South Korean companies with Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus] drugs in earlier clinical trials, Genexine Inc., Shin Poong Pharmaceutical Co. and Celltrion Inc., they added.
North Korea had also tried infiltrating U.K.-based AstraZeneca PLC, whose vaccine co-developed with the University of Oxford, has been shown to be as much as 90% effective and is seeking emergency approval, the people said. On Friday, Rooters reported that suspected North Korean hackers had tried to break into the systems of AstraZeneca, citing unnamed sources.
Two days after the Journal’s revelations, IBM reportedly cautioned that hackers from a potential "nation-state" targeted the coronavirus supply chain, without naming the suspect.
In a blog post, IBM explained that the hackers targeted the vaccine "cold chain," which ensures that inoculations reach their destination while preserved in temperature-controlled environments during storage and transportation, the Hill pointed out on Thursday.
According to IBM, the cyberattacks started in September 2020, targeting organizations that were likely associated with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance’s Cold Chain Equipment Optimization Platform (CCEOP) program spearheading efforts to distribute a potential vaccine to developing nations.
"We assess that the purpose of this COVID-19 phishing campaign may have been to harvest credentials, possibly to gain future unauthorized access to corporate networks and sensitive information relating to the COVID-19 vaccine distribution," IBM security researchers wrote, according to ABC.
If successful, hackers’ disruptions could cost many lives as the virus has reached record levels in several regions globally, particularly the West.
In July, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed an 11-count indictment against two Chinese nationals accused of running a global hacking campaign that targeted American companies researching a vaccine for personal gains and behalf of communist China.