{"id":29162,"date":"2020-11-13T18:21:39","date_gmt":"2020-11-14T02:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=29162"},"modified":"2020-11-13T18:21:39","modified_gmt":"2020-11-14T02:21:39","slug":"microsoft-warns-russian-north-korean-hackers-targeting-groups-researching-covid-19-vaccines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=29162","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft warns Russian, North Korean hackers targeting groups researching COVID-19 vaccines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft warned Friday that\u00a0it has witnessed efforts by Russian and North Korean hacking groups to target pharmaceutical companies and coronavirus vaccine researchers.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement is part of a wider effort by the company to take action against these attacks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn recent months, we\u2019ve detected cyberattacks from three nation-state actors targeting seven prominent companies directly involved in researching vaccines and treatments for Covid-19,\u201d Tom Burt, the corporate vice president of customer security and trust at Microsoft, wrote in a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/click1.email.thehill.com\/hhsmjlnrfvvzdldvzscffzmmfnzpvnvggwfrlhpvnsnsvf_imvymmvhvwydgmvyggvg.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/click1.email.thehill.com\/hhsmjlnrfvvzdldvzscffzmmfnzpvnvggwfrlhpvnsnsvf_imvymmvhvwydgmvyggvg.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605398694973000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1d7b-Q1NRofm-A4osoJEoJ\">blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe targets include leading pharmaceutical companies and vaccine researchers in Canada, France, India, South Korea and the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Burt wrote that the three advanced persistent threat groups involved were a Russian group known as \u201cStrontium\u201d and two North Korean groups known as \u201cZinc\u201d and \u201cCerium.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Strontium, also known as \u201cFancy Bear,\u201d is the same group that hacked into the Democratic National Committee\u2019s networks ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/click1.email.thehill.com\/kvhfwbtkplljzbzljrvppjffptjqltlggspkbdqltrtrht_imvymmvhvwydgmvyggvg.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/click1.email.thehill.com\/kvhfwbtkplljzbzljrvppjffptjqltlggspkbdqltrtrht_imvymmvhvwydgmvyggvg.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605398694973000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1jCI-NxbkuEyX-aJ7lTkxF\">warned<\/a>\u00a0in September that Russia, China and Iran were targeting the 2020 U.S. elections, and noted that the Strontium hacking group had targeted more than 200 organizations, political campaigns and parties over the past year as part of this effort.<\/p>\n<p>Burt noted that most of the groups targeted by the hacking groups were \u201cvaccine makers that have Covid-19 vaccines in various stages of clinical trials.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne is a clinical research organization involved in trials, and one has developed a Covid-19 test,\u201d Burt wrote. \u201cMultiple organizations targeted have contracts with or investments from government agencies from various democratic countries for Covid-19 related work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft warned Friday that\u00a0it has witnessed&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-science-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29163,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29162\/revisions\/29163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}