A European agency got hacked for BioNTech’s docs on its vaccine candidate for Covid-19.
BioNTech, partnered with Pfizer, had manufactured a vaccine, which they said was subject to a hack. A European Medicines Agency faced the Cyber-Attack as per a statement on the firm’s website.
Hacking Of Some Key Documents
The European Medicine Agency got hacked, has been working on getting its produced Covid-19 vaccine approved. This European produced vaccine will reach its completion in a span of two weeks. However, BBC reports that this hack won’t make a difference for them to change the timeline.
The EMA didn’t give out additional details on the hacking incident. However, a brief note on their website mentioned that a full-fledged investigation is underway. Moreover, an EMA spokesperson said it was still ‘Functional,’ as per the BBC report. On the contrary, BioNTech said that the documents relevant to the corona-virus vaccine were illegally accessed.
The Pfizer and BioNTech’s statement says that documents relevant to the submission of Covid-19 vaccine candidate, ‘BNT162b2 were stored on an EMA server which went through unlawful access. The firm is certain, no matter the hack, it won’t affect their announced timeline.
For now, the European Medicine Agency is carrying out trials between the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine and Moderna produced vaccine to see which one would be more effective in fighting the pandemic in E.U member countries.
It is not certain if the EMA database for the Moderna vaccine candidate got hacked too.
Series Of Cyber-Attacks On Covid-19 Vaccine Candidates
The latest cyber-crime is just another addition of such hacks on vaccine development programs since the pandemic broke out. Authorities have been warning public health institutions to safeguard their database as much as possible.
The incident happened just a day before when EMA had to submit its findings on vaccine assessment in the European parliament.
