Microsoft said that hackers, supported by the governments of North Korea and Russia, are targeting companies working on a vaccine for the coronavirus.
It revealed that a Russian group called "Fancy Bear" and two other North Koreans, "Zinc" and "Cerium", were all involved in these recent cyber attacks.
The National Center for Cyber Security in Britain (NCSC) previously announced that Russian hackers were targeting vaccine research, but Russia denied responsibility for this.
However, "Microsoft," which is developing programs for cybersecurity, confirmed that it had detected attempts to break into the computer systems of seven pharmaceutical companies, which it did not name, and vaccine researchers were also targeted in Canada, France, India, South Korea and the United States.
Microsoft indicated that the Russian group used "brute force" attack in an attempt to log into accounts using millions of different passwords, while a North Korean group sent emails claiming to be from WHO officials, and tried to deceive people to hand in their login data.
Some of the storming attempts failed, but "Microsoft" said that some of them were successful.
Russia previously denied targeting vaccine research, and the Russian embassy in Washington told Reuters that it had nothing to add.
In a blog, Microsoft called on world leaders to "affirm that international law protects health care facilities and take the necessary measures to enforce the law."
This is not the first time that countries have been accused of targeting vaccine research activities. Last July, Britain said that Russian intelligence was behind targeting British research, including the Oxford vaccine, and the United States accused China of similar activity.
All of this is part of a global race to reach the vaccine, as countries seek to gain an advantage in this regard, driven by the temptations of the enormous economic, social and health benefits, as well as the external and legitimacy at home that is provided by the forerunner in the development of treatments and vaccines.
