British vaccine developer AstraZeneca has become the target of North Korean cyber attacks.
Attackers posed as recruiters via both LinkedIn and WhatsApp and approached employees of the company with fake jobs. Supplied documents were found to contain malware.
Reuters reports this based on two anonymous sources. The attack targeted a wide range of people, including collaborators working on COVID-19 investigations.
The attacks are said to have failed. The sources report that the attack used tools and attack techniques previously attributed by researchers to North Korea.
It is striking that Russian e-mail addresses were used in the attack. The sources suspect this is an attempt to fool researchers and blamed for the attack on Russian shoes.
AstraZeneca does not want to respond specifically to the attack but reports it is working closely with the British National Cyber Security Center to protect its investigation into COVID-19 as well as possible.