According to South Korean intelligence, the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer faced an attack from North Korean hackers who sought to break into the company’s computer systems to steal information about the vaccine. and treatments for the coronavirus. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) “informed us that North Korea had attempted to obtain technologies including the vaccine and treatments for Covid by means of a cyber attack to hack Pfizer,” the deputy told reporters. Ha Tae-keung.
Pyongyang was the first country in the world to close its borders at the end of January 2020 in an attempt to protect itself from the pandemic that appeared in December 2019 in neighboring China and which has since swept across the entire planet, killing more of two million people. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un says the country has not seen any cases of coronavirus contamination, but experts say the claim is unlikely given that neighboring China is the main trading and supporting partner of Pyongyang.
An army of hackers
The border closures have increased pressure on the North Korean economy, already subject to international sanctions due to the nuclear and ballistic program developed by the communist regime. According to Western experts, North Korea has an army of several thousand highly trained hackers who have already attacked companies, institutions and research centers, especially in South Korea.
Pyongyang has also stolen more than $ 300 million in cryptocurrency in recent months through computer attacks intended to finance its banned nuclear and ballistic programs, according to a confidential UN report released a few days ago. While claiming to be free of the virus, North Korea recently applied for vaccines against Covid-19, of which it should receive nearly two million doses, according to the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), a member of the UN program Covax, which coordinates the distribution of vaccines to poor countries. This is the first official confirmation that Pyongyang has asked for international aid, when North Korea’s medical infrastructure is considered totally inadequate to cope with a large-scale epidemic.
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