North Korean hackers steal Cfid-19 data from Pfizer, says South Korean lawmaker

North Korean hackers steal Cfid-19 data from Pfizer, says South Korean lawmaker

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Ha Tae-keung said on Tuesday that he and other lawmakers had been briefed on the crackdown by South Korea’s national intelligence service, the country’s spy agency.

It is unclear when the alleged attack took place. The NIS declined to comment and Pyongyang did not publicly admit the alleged theft, although North Korean diplomats usually deny the allegations of misconduct.

This is not the first time that North Korean cybercriminals have been accused of stealing information regarding the treatment of Covid-19. Microsoft claimed in November that North Korea’s cyberattacks targeted vaccine makers, and were sometimes “posed as representatives of the World Health Organization”.

The majority of the attacks were blocked, Microsoft said in a statement at the time.

Reuters reported later this month that North Korean hackers allegedly carried out a cyber attack against British coronavirus vaccine developer AstraZeneca, posing as recruiters and staff of the pharmaceutical company – including those working on Covid-19 research – with false job offers.

North Korea has invested heavily in offensive cybercrime over the past few years, enabling the impoverished country to earn money, attack enemies, and pursue the priorities of the Kim Jong Un regime at relatively minimal cost.

The United Nations has accused Pyongyang hackers of stealing $ 316.4 million worth of virtual assets between 2019 and November 2020, spending money on funding the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs in violation of international law.

It appears that the Kim regime has diverted its cyber capability to its efforts to prevent pandemics and obtain a vaccine.

COVAX, an initiative to provide equitable global access to Covid-19 vaccines, said it would provide North Korea with nearly 2 million doses of AstraZeneca-Oxford coronavirus. But North Korea is probably doing everything in its power to get a vaccine for its people, even if it means they want to steal.

“The North Koreans follow a comprehensive approach,” says Dr. Kee B. Park, director of the Korea Health Policy Project at Harvard Medical School and the North American Program of the Korean American Medical Association. “They try everything – produce their own, maybe through GAVI (an organization involved in COVAX), maybe through bilateral channels.”

North Korea’s top priority since the pandemic erupted last year has been to prevent the coronavirus from overpowering its dilapidated healthcare infrastructure. In 2020, Pyongyang voluntarily severed most of its minor ties with the outside world to prevent an influx of Covid-19, including the abolition of almost all trade with Beijing – an economic lifeline North Korea needs to keep its people to keep hungry.

Combating trade has caused the economy to stumble, but it seems to have worked from the point of view of public health. North Korea does not appear to have suffered from major outbreaks of Covid-19 within its borders. North Korea says it has not yet recorded a single case of Covid-19, which most experts consider suspicious. The country has tested only a fraction of its population and has a shared border with China, where the pandemic began.

Yet, Kim, who is overweight and allegedly lives a very unhealthy lifestyle, was confident of appearing in public without a mask on several occasions during the pandemic.

He and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, were photographed during a maskless concert on Tuesday. It was the first time Ri had appeared in the North Korean state media in more than a year. Ha, the South Korean lawmaker, said South Korean intelligence believes she was low as a precaution due to the pandemic.

The usefulness of the data

It is not clear exactly what data North Korea allegedly stole from Pfizer or what North Korean scientists could do with it. North Korea said in July it would try to develop its own coronavirus vaccine, but few believed Pyongyang had the scientific resources or finances to pursue an effort that would eventually cost billions of dollars.

Park, from Harvard Medical School, said during a visit to North Korea that he sees medical professions giving presentations that demonstrate the knowledge and technology to manipulate and cleave genes. However, the country may not be able to take the important next steps in vaccine development, he said.

With so few cases likely in North Korea, there are probably not enough infected people in the country to properly test the effectiveness of a domestic vaccine, Park said. Trials abroad, such as China, would probably be too expensive and could break United Nations sanctions, hampering joint ventures with the Kim regime.

Then there is the question of whether North Korea has the ability to produce a vaccine on such a large scale. Pyongyang usually relies on international donors for other vaccines, such as those to treat tuberculosis.

Finally, it is unclear how useful the Pfizer data would be for North Korea. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first vaccine ever approved for emergency use with MRNA technology, something only a handful of pharmaceutical companies could achieve. Those who achieved it, according to Park, spent billions on it.

Although North Korea could develop an MRNA vaccine like Pfizer, it is unlikely that the country will have the special equipment to transport and store it. The Pfizer vaccine should be kept at ultra-cold temperatures of approximately minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 75 degrees Celsius) to keep the brittle MRNA material safe.

“MRNA is a leading technology,” Park said. “Whether North Korea has that type of technology or not, I do not know, but … I would be really surprised if they can do that. This is something that even many of the developed countries struggle with.”

CNN’s Will Ripley, Paula Hancocks and Amanda Sealy contributed to this report.

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