LONDON (AP) – European Union drug regulator said Friday that COVID-19 vaccine documents stolen by hackers from its servers have not only been leaked to the network, but have been “manipulated” .
He said the European Medicines Agency that an ongoing investigation showed that hackers obtained emails and documents from November related to the evaluation of experimental coronavirus vaccines. The 27-member agency, which regulates medicines and medicines across the EU, had confidential COVID-19 data as part of its vaccine approval process.
“Some of the correspondence has been manipulated by the authors prior to publication in a way that could undermine confidence in vaccines,” the Netherlands-based agency said.
“We have seen that part of the correspondence has not been published in its original integrity and form, nor with comments or additions from the authors.”
The agency did not explain exactly what information was changed, but cybersecurity experts say these practices are typical of misinformation campaigns launched by governments.
Italian cybersecurity firm Yarix said it found the 33-megabyte leak in a well-known underground forum titled “Amazing Fraud! Evil Pfffizer! False Vaccines!” appear elsewhere, including on the dark web, the company said on its website.
Yarix said “The intent behind the leaking of cybercrime is true: to cause significant damage to the reputation and credibility of EMA and Pfizer.”
Cybersecurity consultant Lukasz Olejnik said he believed the intention was much broader.
“I fear this version has significant potential to sow mistrust in the EMA process, vaccines and vaccination in Europe in general,” he said. “While it’s not clear who may be behind this operation, it’s clear that someone determined the resources allocated.”
“This is an unprecedented operation aimed at the validation of pharmaceutical material, with potentially broad negative effects on the health of Europeans if it leads to undermining confidence in the vaccine,” Olejnik added.
The EMA said police authorities are taking “necessary action” in response to the hacking and that a criminal investigation is underway.
He said that given the devastating rate of pandemic, there was an “urgent need for public health to make vaccines available to EU citizens as soon as possible”. The EMA insisted that, despite this urgency, its decisions to recommend green lighting for vaccines were based “on the strength of scientific evidence on the safety, quality and efficacy of a vaccine, and nothing more”.
The Amsterdam-based EMA received strong criticism from Germany and other EU member states in December for not approving vaccines against the virus more quickly. The agency issued its first recommendation for the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine weeks after the shot received approval in Britain, the United States, Canada and elsewhere.
The EMA recommended a second vaccine, manufactured by Moderna, for use earlier this month. The agency is currently considering a third shot made by AstraZeneca and Oxford.
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AP technology writer Frank Bajak contributed from Boston.
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