Microsoft: Russian, North Korean hackers target vaccine work
Boston: Microsoft said it has detected attempts by state-backed Russian and North Korean hackers to steal valuable data from leading pharmaceutical companies and vaccine researchers.
It said in a blogpost Friday that most of the attacks in recent months were unsuccessful, but provided no information on how many succeeded or how serious those breaches were.
Chinese state-backed hackers have also been targeting vaccine-makers, the U.S. government said in July while announcing criminal charges.
Microsoft said most of the targets located in Canada, France, India, South Korea, and the United States were directly involved in researching vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. It did not name the targets but said most had vaccine candidates in various stages of clinical trials.
The company identified one of the state-backed hacker groups like Fancy Bear, the Russian military agents who Britain's National Cyber Security Center said in July were behind such intrusion attempts. Two others were North Korea's Lazarus Group and a group Microsoft calls Cerium.
Most of the break-in efforts involved attempts to steal the login credentials of people associated with the targeted organizations. The Lazarus Group posed as job recruiters while Cerium targeted spear-phishing emails that masqueraded as missives from World Health Organization representatives, Microsoft said.
The blog post coincided with an appearance by Microsoft president Brad Smith at an international forum calling on nations to protect health care facilities from cyberattacks. This year, the Paris Peace Forum is taking place online.
Optimism about a COVID-19 vaccine has grown since pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced earlier this week that preliminary data showed its vaccine to be 90 percent effective.
At the same time, coronavirus cases are surging. In the U.S., deaths per day have soared more than 40 percent over the past two weeks to an average of more than 1,100, the highest level in three months.
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Two highway robbers shot at in Hubballi during spot inspection
Hubballi (Karnataka), Nov 24: Two suspected robbers were shot at on Sunday when they tried to escape from police as they were taken for a spot inspection, Hubballi-Dharwad Police Commissioner N Shashikumar said.
The incident happened when they were taken to a spot, in the outskirts of Hubbali, where they allegedly waylaid a car and looted money couple of weeks ago. Police took them there to make them describe the alleged crime.
The two alleged robbers Bharath and Farooq from Mangaluru were shot in their leg when they assaulted three police officers including two women police officers, Shashikumar told PTI.
He said the police officers shot them in self defence. According to him, the gang had waylaid a car on November 8 and decamped with Rs 7 lakh. Investigation led to the arrest of Bharath and Farooq and subsequently some amount was recovered from them, he added.
The Police Commissioner said the injured are being treated at Hubballi KIMS Hospital. Farooq, he said, has more than 17 cases registered against him in various police stations. There were cases registered against him in other states as well.
Bharat too has many criminal cases against him in various police stations in the state, Shashikumar said.
