As the fight against the coronavirus pandemic has progressed through the research phases to the production of working vaccines against COVID-19, the cyber attacks have followed.
These attacks are nothing new, but they've changed focus.
In March and April there were attacks[1] on the US Department Health and Human Services, attacks[2] on one of Czechia's biggest COVID-19 testing laboratories, and attacks[3] on the World Health Organization and, it seems, Chinese government agencies too.
The Vietnamese government-linked hacking group Ocean Lotus targeted[4] officials in Wuhan, where the virus was first recorded, and the Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management.
Australia and the US, as well as other nations, spoke out[5] against such attacks.
"As Australians and the international community band together to respond to COVID-19, we are concerned that malicious cyber actors are seeking to exploit the pandemic for their own gain," Australia's Ambassador for Cyber Affairs, Dr Tobias Feakin told ZDNet in April.
"History will judge harshly those exploiting this crisis for their own objectives."
But more recently we've seen phishing attacks on the vaccine cold chain[6], the temperature-controlled environment needed to transport and store the vaccine, as well as tax and customs officials, and the manufacturers of cold chain equipment.
All in all, companies in Germany, Italy, South Korea, Czechia, greater Europe, and Taiwan were targeted in that one campaign.
Three state-sponsored hacker groups from Russia and North Korea have targeted seven COVID-19 vaccine makers[7]. China and Iran have also been accused of attacks[8].
Johnson & Johnson's CISO said healthcare organisations are seeing cyber attacks from nation-state threat actors[9] "every single minute of every single day".
Shouldn't