A Chinese hacking group has targeted the IT systems of two Indian vaccine makers – Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech – in recent weeks, cyber intelligence firm Cyfirma told Reuters.
The Goldman Sachs-backed firm Cyfirma told Reuters that Chinese hacking group APT10 (Stone Panda) had identified loopholes in the IT infrastructure and supply chain software of Bharat Biotech and the Serum Institute of India (SII).
“The real motivation here is actually exfiltrating intellectual property and getting competitive advantage over Indian pharmaceutical companies,” Reuters quoted Cyfirma Chief Executive Kumar Ritesh as saying.
“In the case of Serum Institute, they (hackers) have found a number of their public servers running weak web servers, these are vulnerable web servers,” Ritesh said.
“They have spoken about weak web application, they are also talking about weak content-management system. It’s quite alarming,” he added.
Meanwhile, Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech declined to comment on the matter.
(With Inputs From Reuters)