BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th July, 2020) German companies involved in COVID-19 research have been alerted by the national counterintelligence to the threat of cyberattacks, the country's Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (vfa) confirmed to Sputnik.
Last week, the Germany Interior Ministry told Sputnik that the counterintelligence issued the relevant warning in May. The alert contained "general information" pertaining to the ongoing vaccine-related research, the ministry said, noting that the document had not named any specific countries that could pose a cyberthreat. The same day, the ministry stated that Germany has not registered any cyberattacks on its major developers of coronavirus vaccines.
"We can confirm that we had been informed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution about the threat of cyberattacks and passed this information to our members," the association's spokesman Jochen Stemmler said.
The internal communication on the matter is confidential, he added.
On Thursday, the UK's National Cyber Security Centre announced that a joint operation with the US and Canada had uncovered that Russian cyberactors, who operate "almost certainly" as part of Russian intelligence services, are trying to steal valuable information from the three countries' COVID-19 vaccine researchers.
In an interview with Sky news on Sunday, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who had immediately held Russia accountable, claimed that he is "absolutely confident" that Russian intelligence services are to blame.
The Kremlin has said that Russia has nothing to do with any cyberattacks on vaccine research centers. Russian Direct Investment Fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev, in turn, called the UK's claims an attempt to tarnish the reputation of a Russian coronavirus vaccine under development, which he says may become the world's first.
