Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, hackers and scammers have focused extraordinary attention on it, whether for espionage or for grift. Now, as pharmaceutical companies prepare to ship long-awaited vaccines, a new round of sophisticated phishing attacks is focused on the complex supply chain that will get them to people in need.
Two of the leading Covid-19 vaccine candidates, by Pfizer and Moderna, have been submitted to the FDA for emergency authorization; the agency is scheduled to evaluate Pfizer’s application on December 10, and Moderna’s one week later. UK regulators approved Pfizer’s vaccine on Wednesday. Which means that the next challenge for both vaccines is transporting them. They must be kept at frigid temperatures—minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit for Moderna, and 94 degrees below for Pfizer—requiring a network of specialists known as the “cold chain.” Today, security researchers at IBM are releasing findings that a campaign has for months targeted a significant