“cold chain” needed to ensure coronavirus
vaccines get the nonstop sterile refrigeration
they need to be effective for the nearly 3 billion
people who live where temperature-controlled
storage is insufficient, IBM said.
“Think of it as the bloodline that will be
supplying the most vital vaccines globally,”
said Claire Zaboeva, an IBM analyst involved in
the detection.
Whoever is behind the operation could be
motivated by a desire to learn how the vaccines
are best able to be shipped and stored — the
entire refrigeration process — in order to copy
it, said Nick Rossmann, the IBM team’s global
threat intelligence lead. Or they might want
to be able to undermine a vaccine’s legitimacy
or launch a disruptive or destructive attack,
he added.
In the ploy, executives with groups likely
associated with the initiative known as Covax —
created by the Gavi Vaccine Alliance, the World
Health Organization and other U.N. agencies
— were sent spoofed emails appearing to come
from an executive of Haier Biomedical, a Chinese
company considered the world’s main cold-
chain supplier, the analyst said.
The phishing emails had malicious attachments
that prompted recipients to enter credentials
that could have been used to harvest sensitive
information about partners vital to the vaccine-
delivery platform.
Targets included the European Commission’s
Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs
Union and companies that make solar panels for
powering portable vaccine refrigerators. Other
targets were petrochemical companies, likely