Cyberattacks Target Israeli Labs Working on Coronavirus Vaccine
As a cyberattack shut down hundreds of Israeli websites last week, research centers working on a vaccine for the novel coronavirus were also targeted by a cyberattack, Channel 12 reported.
The attacks attempted and failed to damage the vaccine development process, but did not attempt to steal information.
Cyberattacks have been reported on other vaccine research centers around the world, including in the US and England. Some of the attacks have been blamed on Russia and China.
Important aspects of the country’s efforts to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus are networked and are vulnerable to a variety of cyberattacks, Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) Chief Yigal Unna said in April.
Cybersecurity firm Checkpoint Software Technologies explained that cyberattacks related to the coronavirus are on the rise in Israel and around the world with 20,000 attacks reported every day throughout the world, despite the overall number of cyberattacks happening worldwide dropping slightly.
Hundreds of Israeli websites were the target of a cyberattack on Thursday morning, their home pages being replaced with an anti-Israel video and message in Hebrew and broken English: “The countdown of Israel destruction has begun since a long time ago [sic].”
Read More: Jerusalem Post