IBM uncovers more attacks against Covid-19 vaccine supply chain

A hacking campaign that International Business Machines Corp. detected last year against organizations involved in the manufacturing, transportation and storage of Covid-19 vaccines was wider than initially understood and is now found to have targeted more than 40 companies in 14 countries, the company said Wednesday.

The attacks against the “cold chain” — a temperature-controlled supply chain — highlight the risk of intellectual property theft and potential disruption for stakeholders in the fragile process of shipping vaccines across long distances at stable temperatures, researchers from IBM’s X-Force cybersecurity group wrote in a blog post.

The company reported in December the discovery of the attacks, which involved hackers masquerading as representatives of Qingdao Haier Biomedical Co.,