South Korea's National Intelligence Service has accused North Korea of attempting to hack into pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's systems to steal COVID-19 vaccine technology, according to a Feb. 16 BBC report.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service privately briefed lawmakers there about the alleged attack; it's unclear whether any data was stolen, according to the report. North Korea is expecting a shipment of 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine in the next few weeks.
The alleged hacking incident comes just a few months after the European Medicines Agency was hacked for its Pfizer and Moderna vaccine data. In January, the EMA announced that the hackers responsible for the attack had manipulated the information before publishing it online as a way to undermine the public's trust in vaccines.