India ranks 6th for highest cyber attacks on pharma firms

New Delhi: India is the sixth country in the world where more and more pharmaceutical companies are being targeted by cybercriminals, a new report said on Sunday.
Nearly 45 percent machines in the Indian pharmaceutical organizations — more than four in 10 devices — were detected with malicious attempts, said cybersecurity firm Kaspersky.
From 44 percent of machines infected in 2017 and a 1 percent increase in 2018, this year’s number of detected attempts shows that nearly every 5-in-10 devices inside a pharmaceutical facility are now being targeted globally.
Amongst the countries which logged the most number of attacks are Pakistan (54 percent), Egypt (53 percent), Mexico (47 percent), Indonesia (46 percent) and Spain (45 percent), with India at sixth position.
“While it is a known fact that money-hungry cybercriminals can easily earn by attacking banks, we also observe that these hackers, as well as cyberespionage groups, are slowly paying a lot of attention towards the industry of advanced medicine,” said Yury Namestnikov, Head of Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) Russia at Kaspersky.
“They are slowly realizing that pharmaceutical companies house a treasure trove of highly valuable data such as the latest drugs and vaccines, the newest researches, as well as medical secrets,” he added.