U.S. Officials: Beware Of China And Others Trying To Steal COVID-19 Research
As researchers around the globe race to develop a coronavirus vaccine, U.S. authorities are warning American firms to exercise extreme caution in safeguarding their research against China and others with a track record of stealing cutting-edge medical technology.
"We are imploring all those research facilities and hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that are doing really great research to do everything in their power to protect it," Bill Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in an interview with NPR.
"We don't want that company or the research hospital to be the one a year from now, two years from now, identified as having it all stolen before they finished it," said Evanina, whose center falls under the director of national intelligence.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Britain's National Cyber Security Center recently issued a statement saying hackers are "actively targeting organisations ... that include healthcare bodies, pharmaceutical companies, academia, medical research organisations, and local government."
The statement did not name China or any other country. Reuters reported that hackers linked to Iran tried to break into email accounts at the U.S. drugmaker Gilead Sciences, which has a potentially promising drug to treat the COVID-19 virus. Iran denied the report.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2020, @05:58AM
There's another possibility. China is buggered without healthy international markets to buy their shit and to supply them with most of their raw materials and necessities of life. They need the world economy humming and are smart enough to recognize this. They've already been using Covid-19 to increase their influence on the world stage - see the photo ops of medical supplies to African and other countries who feel abandoned by the U.S. in this shitstorm. Italy is a prime example of the effectiveness of this approach by China.
I would not be at all surprised if China comes up with a vaccine first that they either open source it or make the vaccine freely available at minimal cost to the rest of the world. Whatever it costs them will be more than paid back in returning markets and international good will. No amount of Pence pitching wobblies at meetings with foreign allies because none of them are calling it the "Wuhan Virus" will matter.
That flushing sound you hear? That's the sound of U.S. hegemony draining away.