Security News
The EU Medicines Agency today revealed it was hacked, just a week after infosec eggheads said foreign state hackers have been targeting European institutions. BioNTech, the German biotech firm that is developing a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine with Pfizer said it was told by EMA that the miscreants had stolen from an agency computer files submitted by BioNTech and Pfizer describing their vaccine as part of the regulatory approval process.
The EU's medicines regulator said Wednesday it had been the victim of a cyberattack, just weeks before it is due to decide on special approval for two coronavirus vaccines. "EMA has been the subject of a cyberattack. The agency has swiftly launched a full investigation, in close cooperation with law enforcement and other relevant entities," the EMA said in a brief statement.
An unidentified group of malicious sorts impersonated a so-called "Cold chain" company involved in COVID-19 vaccine distribution networks then targeted an EU governmental agency, according to IBM. Infosec researchers from Big Blue's X-Force threat intelligence unit "Uncovered targets across multiple industries, governments and global partners" involved in setting up the vaccine cold chain, it said in a blog post today. The phishing campaign's operators reportedly posed as an executive from the Chinese arm of Haier Biomedical, a business IBM described as "a credible and legitimate member company of the COVID-19 vaccine supply chain and qualified supplier for the CCEOP program."
IBM X-Force warned of threat actors actively targeting organizations associated with the COVID-19 vaccine cold chain in a large scale spear-phishing campaign that has started three months ago, in September 2020. Cold chain orgs are an essential part of storing and delivering the COVID-19 vaccine at safe temperatures, minus 70 degrees Celsius for the one made by Pfizer and minus 20 Celsius for the one developed by Moderna.
The European Union is laying out new standards for data giving Europeans more control over their personal information as it seeks to counter the power of U.S. and Chinese tech companies. The EU's executive Commission on Wednesday proposed new rules on the handling of data that would aim to give people, businesses and government bodies the confidence to share their information in a European data market.
European privacy activists have filed complaints against Apple over its use of software to track the behavior of iPhone users. NOYB says the iOS operating system creates unique codes for each iPhone that allow Apple and other third parties to "Identify users across applications and even connect online and mobile behaviour."
The European Union on Monday agreed to tighten up rules for the sale and export of cybersurveillance technology. EU lawmakers and the European Council reached a provisional deal to update controls of so-called dual use goods such as facial recognition technology and spyware to prevent them from being used to violate human rights.
Digital rights campaigners on Monday criticized a proposal by European Union governments that calls for communications companies to provide authorities with access to encrypted messages. The plan, first reported by Austrian public broadcaster FM4, reflects concern among European countries that police and intelligence services can't easily monitor online chats that use end-to-end encryption, such as Signal or WhatsApp.
Two years after the EU launched its landmark GDPR data rights charter, there are signs Ireland is faltering in its outsized role as regulator of many of the most powerful digital giants. "It's a blessing for Ireland economically to be the seat of these big digital companies for Europe, and that brings a lot of revenue," one EU Commission official with deep knowledge of the area told AFP. "With this, of course, comes an obligation. With the role as a lead regulator it has a duty to the citizens all over Europe."
For companies with data users in both the EU and the US, laws protecting users' privacy vary. Tom Merritt lists five things to know about EU-US data privacy.