The European Medicines Agency (EMA) today revealed that some of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine data stolen from its servers in December was leaked online.
EMA is a decentralized agency responsible for reviewing and approving COVID-19 vaccines, as well as for evaluating, monitoring, and supervising any new medicines introduced to the EU.
"The ongoing investigation of the cyberattack on EMA revealed that some of the unlawfully accessed documents related to COVID-19 medicines and vaccines belonging to third parties have been leaked on the internet," EMA said today. "Necessary action is being taken by the law enforcement authorities."
"The Agency continues to fully support the criminal investigation into the data breach and to notify any additional entities and individuals whose documents and personal data may have been subject to unauthorized access."
EMA also said that European medicines regulatory network is fully functional and COVID-19 evaluation and approval timelines are not affected by the incident.
On December 31st, BleepingComputer became aware of threat actors leaking what they claimed was the stolen EMA data on several hacker forums. Below is a screenshot of one of the leaks seen by BleepingComputer at the time.
The hacked files show that the clinical vaccines had 78% RNA integrity which dropped to only 55% in the commercial batches:
https://m.imgur.com/tQrnUWM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Friday January 15 2021, @09:01AM (6 children)
Pfizer vaccine banned in Russia today. Perhaps they know why.
Feel free to downmod, I am not insulted. Knowledge is priority before social status for me.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @10:01AM (3 children)
Where do you live that social status is influenced by soylent news mod points?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @12:04PM
Social status on social media is determined by social media points. The only way to win is... Well, you know.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Vocal Minority on Saturday January 16 2021, @03:35AM (1 child)
I think he means on Soylent News.
Social status amongst smelly neck-beards is still social status :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 16 2021, @07:50AM
Well, mojibake tengu would get a lot more "smelly neck-beard" cred if he didn't constantly post inane and uninformed bullshit.
This message is copyright © 2021 by The Smelly Neck-Beards of Soylent News Benevolent Association who are solely responsible for its contents.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday January 16 2021, @04:32AM
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/01/hackers-alter-stolen-regulatory-data-to-sow-mistrust-in-covid-19-vaccine/ [arstechnica.com]
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday January 17 2021, @10:05AM
Russia wants you to trust their dodgy Sputnik vaccine, which is why "Russian hackers" released "hacked data" showing all sorts of scary stuff about the Pfizer vaccine, based on a mishmash of existing stories about it. For example the "55% RNA integrity" (whatever that means, it's not in the original story) is fairly close to the first-dose efficacy rate [bmj.com], and the story about fatalities in Norway was all for over-80s patients in aged care facilities, which points at some common factor other than the vaccine used.
I would wait a few days before panicking over the data.