Are Russian Cyber-Spies Targeting COVID 19 Vaccine Research Labs?

Seems unbelievable when I’ve first heard of it but are Russia’s top cyber-spies targeting the world’s leading COVID 19 vaccine research labs?

By: Ringo Bones

Given that to those old enough to remember that the then Soviet Union was at the cutting edge in medical science when it comes to developing performance enhancing drugs at the height of the Cold War, and hence their “almost mythical” athletic performance during the Olympic Games after World War II, that Putin era Russia now has resorted to stealing vital data via cyber espionage when it comes to developing a working COVID 19 vaccine seems “unbelievable”. But, sadly, the world’s leading cyber security services had just found out that the Kremlin’s go-to cyber-spies, a hacker group popularly known as Cozy Bear, was responsible for hacking the computer servers of UK, Canadian and US labs currently working on a working COVID 19 vaccine. It did not specify which organizations had been targeted or whether any information had been stolen. But it said vaccine research had not been hindered by hackers and as usual, Russia has denied any responsibility.

The warning was recently published by an international group of security services like the UK’s NCSC, the Canadian Communication Security Establishment (CSE), the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cyber security Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the US National security Agency. One expert said it was “plausible” that, despite the Kremlin’s denials, Russian spies were involved. Cozy Bear – the named cyber espionage and hacking group – has been implicated in past cyber attacks and has left quite a trail, and there are fairly good links to the Russian state itself. Cozy Bear was first identified as being a significant “threat actor” as far back as 2014, according to the American cyber security firm Crowdstrike. It describes the group as being “aggressive” in its tactics and “nothing if not flexible, changing tool sets frequently. The unit has been previously implicated in hacking the US Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 2016 US Presidential Election. But given Russia’s reputation of being the cutting edge in medical science since the Soviet era, why did the Kremlin authorize such an operation in order to be the first in developing a working COVID 18 vaccine?

From a geopolitical perspective, a nation state that can first develop a working COVID 19 vaccine could gain an unfair advantage from an economic perspective in being able to end a government enforced lockdown and restarting the economy while keeping its own citizens from getting sick and or dying from COVID 19. It seems that the COVID 19 vaccine spy-game is a high stakes play in terms of statecraft indeed. Let’s just hope that Agent 007 has the sufficient medical degree to tackle such a case successfully.

Has Beijing Doing Cyber Espionage on the African Union?

Even though they had donated the building and the computer equipment, has Beijing been conducting cyber espionage work on the African Union headquarters during the last five years?

By Ringo Bones 

The 200-million US dollar headquarters in Addis Ababa – including the computer system - was fully funded and built by China and opened to great fanfare back in 2012. Many in the West see it as a symbol of Beijing’s thrust for influence in Africa and access to the continent’s natural resources. Then an article published back in Friday, January 2, 2018 in the French publication Le Monde quoting anonymous African Union sources – which included IT technicians – reported that data from computers in the Chinese-built building had been transferred nightly to Mainland Chinese servers during the past five years. After the massive hack was discovered a year ago, the building’s IT system including the servers was changes, according to Le Monde. During the sweep for bugs after the discovery, microphones hidden in desks and the walls were also detected and removed, the newspaper reported. 

Sadly, despite of the report’s credibility, Chinese and African Union officials that gathered in Addis Ababa for the bloc’s annual summit both denied Le Monde’s report. China’s ambassador to the African Union, Kuang Weilin, recently called the article “ridiculous and preposterous” and said its publication was intended to put pressure on relations between Beijing and the African continent. 

When asked about the report, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who assumed the African Union chairmanship this year, said that he did not know anything about it. “But in any case, I don’t think there is anything done here that we would not like people to know,” he told reporters after a meeting of African heads-of-state. “I don’t think spying is the specialty of the Chinese, We have spies all over the place in this world,” Kagame said. “But I will not have worried about being spied on in this building.” Kagame’s only concern, he said, was that the African Union should have built its own headquarters, instead of China. “I would only have wished that in Africa we got our act together earlier on. We should have been able to build our own building.”