Hackers Target WHO, COVID-19 Research Firm with Cyberattacks

Hacking groups are targeting healthcare in full force, with the World Health Organization and Hammersmith Medicines Research (HMR), a UK-based research team on standby for developing a COVID-19 vaccine, reporting they were both hit with cyberattacks in the past month. Reuters was the first to report the attack on WHO. Hackers unsuccessfully attempted to breach the network of the health organization and its partners beginning on March 13. A researcher detected a hacking group activating a malicious site that impersonated the email system of WHO. The Office for Civil Rights recently warned healthcare providers that hackers have increasingly impersonated health agencies tasked with the Coronavirus response, as well as the FBI and the Department of Justice. It’s currently unclear who’s responsible for the attack, but the researcher who discovered the incident, Alexander Urbelis, a cybersecurity expert and attorney with Blackstone Law Group, believes the attack was the work of cyberespionage hackers known as DarkHotel.