- North Korea wants to “decide which one [vaccine] will be easiest to boot and transport for the black market, ”said an official.
- The country has a long history of counterfeiting, smuggling, drug trafficking and arms smuggling.
- The dictatorship wants foreign currency. The domestic currency is usually worthless.
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North Korean hackers attempted to breach the servers of US-based vaccine manufacturer Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, hoping to gather scientific data that could be used to create bootleg copies of a COVID-19 vaccine for sale in international black markets, according to intelligence officials in Europe.
North Korea’s intention was likely to raise funds in foreign currency. The domestic currency of the hermit dictatorship is usually worthless beyond its borders.
Two European security officials briefed on cyber operations told Insider that the attempted break-in was likely an official North Korean operation to gather scientific data on Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, one of only three vaccines to date. approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization. Both officials said the attempt was related to the November announcement of multiple hackers using Microsoft’s network infrastructure.
“It was clearly an attempt to gather information rather than one
malware
– or a ransom-style attack. I will not go into technical details, but we have a lot of experience with each type of attack, ”said a European official, who would not be named due to the extreme sensitivity of the situation.
North Korea will have physical access to Pfizer vaccines long after seeing Chinese or Russian versions. But they want to decide which one is easiest to boot and transport for the black market, the official said, noting that both Russia and China have promised North Korea millions of free doses, despite the country’s claim that it never had a case of COVID.
So they wanted to see if the Pfizer vaccine would be a feasible dose to copy, the official added. “We don’t provide any information on whether the hacking attempt was successful, but if it did, I would suspect that the Pfizer vaccine would pose too many production and storage problems compared to the Russian or Chinese vaccines.” The Pfizer vaccine requires two types of refrigeration; the AstraZeneca version only needs a normal refrigerator.
When asked if North Korea would try to sell some sort of bootleg, the source said without a doubt, given North Korea’s long history of counterfeiting, smuggling, drug trafficking and arms smuggling through their embassies around the world.
Hacking alone will bring the regime huge amounts of money, according to charges last week by US authorities against a ring of North Korean state-linked hackers accused of stealing $ 1.3 billion from various targets.
For decades, North Korea has been accused of using its embassies as lucrative outposts for organized crime, ranging from counterfeiting U.S. currency, trading methamphetamine around the world through secure diplomatic pouches to selling weapons to rogue regimes in struggle with embargoes.
In 2007, Israeli warplanes bombed a secret nuclear reactor being built in Syria with the help of North Korean engineers, who have long been secretly supporting Middle Eastern regimes in exchange for hard currency.
“The North Koreans have been essential to Israel’s enemies since the 1970s. They first helped the PLO build massive fortifications and bunkers in the camps in Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley,” said a former Israeli official. “And today we have strong evidence – it is no doubt real – that they have been working with Hezbollah and Iran for decades to strengthen their positions not only in Lebanon but also in Iran.”
When asked why North Korea was their preferred source, the source was blunt.
“They are great engineers with a national mining history,” they said. “Arabs don’t really have hundreds of years of coal mining to rely on their expertise like they do. And they can work anywhere and there will be no questions if there is an accident or if the site is bombed by the [Israeli Air Force]