Unknown attackers attempt to access COVID-19 vaccine data in Europe

The European Union's medicine administration agency says documents relating to a COVID-19 vaccine were obtained when its systems were targeted in a cyberattack on Wednesday.

Friday, 11th December 2020

The European Union's medicine administration agency says documents relating to a COVID-19 vaccine were obtained when its systems were targeted in a cyberattack on Wednesday. The European Medicines Agency (EMA), which is based in Amsterdam, said that it had "quickly began a full investigation, in close collaboration with the police". The agency is thinking on whether to grant administrative approval to two COVID-19 vaccines: one produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, the other by the US-based firm Moderna. The unknown criminals accessed records relating to the Pfizer/BioNTeach candidate, the vaccine that was established in the United Kingdom last week. BioNTech said that it had been told by the EMA that "some documents relating to the regulatory obedience for Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, which has been stored on an EMA server, had been unlawfully accessed." It added: "no BioNTech or Pfizer policies have been breached in combination with this incident and we are unaware that any study participants have been identified in the data being accessed. "EMA has assured us that the cyber attack will have no impact on the timeline for its review." The agency is expected to vote on whether to approve the vaccine for public use by the end of this month. A decision on the Moderna vaccine is supposed to follow early in January. In a short statement of its own, the EMA said: "The Agency has quickly launched a full inquiry, in close collaboration with law enforcement and other relevant entities. It was not immediately clear how much the agency had been affected by the cyberattack or whether any other data had been agreed. Under European Union rules, the EMA must approve any new vaccines for use in the bloc — although emergency procedures can be used by member states to introduce vaccines on a temporary basis. These were the procedures used by the UK — which is no longer a member state but continues to follow EU rules until the end of 2020 — to deploy the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine this week. The makers of other vaccines, including those grown in Russia and China, have so far not contacted the EMA to use their medicines in Europe.