The attacks against the “cold chain” - a
temperature-controlled supply chain - highlight the risk of intellectual
property theft and potential disruption for stakeholders in the fragile process
of shipping vaccines across long distances at stable temperatures, researchers
from IBM's X-Force cyber-security group wrote in a blog post.
The company reported in December the discovery of the
attacks, which involved hackers masquerading as representatives of Qingdao
Haier Biomedical, a China-based company and one of the world's largest makers
of equipment to store and deliver materials at cold temperatures. IBM's new
research found that the targets were broader than originally detected,
involving emails sent in early September that sought to trick people into opening
malicious attachments that purported to contain requests for quotes for a
solar-powered vaccine refrigerator and other equipment specific to the
industry.
“Exploring the available emails, X-Force uncovered multiple
features which likely signal the actor's exceptional knowledge of the cold
chain,” the researchers wrote. “While our previous reporting featured direct
targeting of supranational organisations, the energy, and IT sectors across six
nations, we believe this expansion to be consistent with the established attack
pattern, and the campaign remains a deliberate and calculated threat.”
IBM didn't identify any suspected hacking group behind the
attacks, but the company previously said it believed the campaign was the work
of an unspecified nation-state. IBM didn't say whether the attacks were
effective in getting people to click on the malicious attachments. -Bloomberg
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