Hackers targeting Covid-19 vaccine cold chain, warns IBM

San Francisco, Dec 3 : Tech giant IBM on Thursday said its team has uncovered a global phishing campaign targeting organisations associated with a Covid-19 cold chain.
The cold chain plays a very important role in vaccine supply chain by ensuring the safe preservation of vaccines in temperature-controlled environments during their storage and transportation.
This calculated operation targeting organisations linked to Covid-19 cold chain started in September, IBM said in a blog post.
The Covid-19 phishing campaign spanned across six countries and targeted organisations likely associated with Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance’s Cold Chain Equipment Optimization Platform (CCEOP) programme.
While the identity of the attackers could not be determined definitively, the precision targeting of executives and key global organisations hold the potential hallmarks of nation-state tradecraft, IBM said.
The analysis of the campaign showed that the attackers impersonated a business executive from Haier Biomedical, a credible and legitimate member company of the COVID-19 vaccine supply chain and qualified supplier for the CCEOP programme.