WASHINGTON: Western governments on Thursday accused hackers believed to be part of Russian intelligence of trying to steal valuable private information about a coronavirus vaccine, calling out the Kremlin in an unusually detailed public warning to scientists and medical companies.
The alleged culprit is a familiar foe. Intelligence agencies in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada say the hacking group APT29, also known as Cozy Bear, is attacking academic and pharmaceutical research institutions involved in COVID-19 vaccine development. The same group was implicated in the hacking of Democratic email accounts during the 2016 US presidential election.
It was unclear whether any useful information was stolen. But British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, “It is completely unacceptable that the Russian Intelligence Services are targeting those working to combat the coronavirus pandemic.”
He accused Moscow of pursuing “selfish interests with reckless behavior.”
Sticking to more general language, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, “We worked very closely with our allies to ensure that we would take measures to keep that information safe and we continue do so so.”
The allegation that hackers linked to a foreign government are attempting to siphon secret research during the pandemic is not entirely new. US officials as recently as Thursday have accused China of similar conduct. But the latest warning was startling for the detail it provided, attributing the targeting by name to a particular hacking group and specifying the software vulnerabilities the hackers have been exploiting.
Also, Russian cyberattacks strike a particular nerve in the US given the Kremlin’s sophisticated campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election. And the coordination of the new warning across continents seemed designed to add heft and gravity to the announcement and to prompt the Western targets of the hackers to protect themselves.
“I think (the governments) have very specific intelligence that they can provide,” said John Hultquist, senior director of analysis at Mandiant Threat Intelligence. “The report is full of specific operational information that defenders can use” to protect their networks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, rejected the accusations, saying, “We don’t have information about who may have hacked pharmaceutical companies and research centers in Britain.”
“We may say one thing: Russia has nothing to do with those attempts,” Peskov said, according to the state news agency Tass.
The accusations come at a tenuous time for relations between Russia and both the US and UK
Besides political ill will, especially among Democrats, about the 2016 election interference, the Trump administration is under pressure to confront Russia over intelligence information that Moscow offered bounties to Taliban fighters to attack allied fighters.
The Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, said “it’s clear that Russia’s malign cyber operations and other destabilizing activities — from financial and other material support to non-state actors in Afghanistan to poisoning dissidents in democratic countries — have persisted, even when exposed.” He urged President Donald Trump to condemn such activities.
The vaccine assessment came two years to the day after Trump met with Putin in Helsinki and appeared to side with Moscow over US intelligence agencies about the election interference. The UK did not say whether Putin knew about the more recent research hacking, but British officials believe such intelligence would be highly prized.
Relations between Russia and the UK, meanwhile, have plummeted since former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Soviet-made nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury in 2018, though they later recovered. Britain blamed Moscow for the attack, which triggered a round of retaliatory diplomatic expulsions between Russia and Western countries.
More broadly, Thursday’s announcement speaks to the cybersecurity vulnerability created by the pandemic and the global race for a vaccine.
The US Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency warned in April that cybercriminals and other groups were targeting COVID-19 research, noting at the time that the increase in people teleworking because of the pandemic had created potential avenues for hackers to exploit.
Profit-motivated criminals have exploited the situation, and so have foreign governments “who also have their own urgent demands for information about the pandemic and about things like vaccine research,” Tonya Ugoretz, a deputy assistant director in the FBI’s cyber division, said at a cybersecurity conference last month.
“Some of them are using their cyber capabilities to, for example, attempt to break into the networks of those who are conducting this research as well as into nongovernmental organizations to satisfy their own information needs,” Ugoretz said.
The alert did not name the targeted organizations themselves or say how many were affected. But it did say the organizations were in the US, UK and Canada, and said the goal was to steal information and intellectual property related to vaccine development.
Britain’s NCSC said its assessment was shared by the National Security Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and by the Canadian Communication Security Establishment.
A 16-page advisory prepared by Western agencies and made public Thursday accuses Cozy Bear of using custom malicious software to target a number of organizations globally. The malware, called WellMess and WellMail, has not previously been associated with the group, the advisory said.
“In recent attacks targeting COVID-19 vaccine research and development, the group conducted basic vulnerability scanning against specific external IP addresses owned by the organizations. The group then deployed public exploits against the vulnerable services identified,” the advisory said.
Cozy Bear is one of two hacking groups suspected of separate break-ins of computer networks of the Democratic National Committee before the 2016 US election. Stolen emails were then published by WikiLeaks in what US intelligence authorities say was an effort to aid Trump’s campaign over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
A report on Russian election interference by former special counsel Robert Mueller called out another group, Fancy Bear, in the hack-and-leak operation. Cozy Bear, though, operates “quietly gaining access and gathering intelligence,” said Hultquist of the Mandiant cybersecurity firm.
Their goal, he said, is “good old-fashioned espionage.”
Separately, Thursday, Britain accused “Russian actors” of trying to interfere in December’s UK national election by circulating leaked or stolen documents online. Unlike in the vaccine report, the UK did not allege that the Russian government was involved in the political meddling.
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Russia is hacking virus vaccine trials, US, UK, Canada say
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Russia is hacking virus vaccine trials, US, UK, Canada say
- The alleged culprit is known as APT29, the same group was implicated in the hacking of Democratic email accounts during the 2016 US presidential election
Bangladesh’s Hindu minority in fear as attacks rise and a national election nears
- Among Hindus, fear has grown more pervasive as the Muslim-majority nation moves toward a national election
- Attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh have also inflamed tensions with neighboring India
DHAKA: Dipu Chandra Das, a 27-year-old Hindu garment worker, was accused in December by several Muslim colleagues of making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad. The accusations drew a violent mob to his workplace. He was beaten to death, his body hung from a tree and set on fire.
Across Bangladesh, Hindus watched the recorded images on their phones with dread. Protests erupted in Dhaka and other cities, with demonstrators demanding justice and greater protections. The interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, ordered an investigation, and police said that about a dozen people were arrested.
But human rights groups and Hindu leaders say the killing wasn’t an isolated act, but part of a wider surge in attacks on the minority community, fueled by rising polarization, the reemergence of Islamists and what they describe as a growing culture of impunity. Among Hindus, fear has grown more pervasive as the Muslim-majority nation moves toward a national election on Feb. 12.
“No one feels safe anymore,” said Ranjan Karmaker, a Dhaka-based Hindu human rights activist. “Everyone is terrified.”
Surge in attacks
Hindus make up a small minority in Bangladesh, about 13.1 million people, or roughly 8 percent of the country’s population of 170 million, while Muslims make up 91 percent.
The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, an umbrella group representing minority communities, says it documented more than 2,000 incidents of communal violence since the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a mass uprising in August 2024.
The group recorded at least 61 killings, 28 instances of violence against women — among them rape and gang rape — and 95 attacks on places of worship involving vandalism, looting and arson. It has also accused the Yunus-led administration of routinely dismissing or downplaying reports of such violence.
When contacted by The Associated Press for a response, an official from Yunus’ press team declined to comment. The administration headed by Yunus has consistently denied claims that it has failed to ensure adequate protection for minority communities and insisted that most incidents aren’t driven by religious hostility.
Previous elections in Bangladesh have also seen increases in violence, with religious minorities often bearing the brunt. But with Hasina’s Awami League party barred from contesting elections and with her living in exile in India, many Hindus fear the worst as they have long been viewed as aligned with Hasina.
Karmaker, the rights activist, said that Hindus are often perceived as voting en masse for one side, a perception that heightens their vulnerability. He said that the community was also gripped by fear because of a culture of impunity, and near-weekly incidents, warning that in some parts of the country the Hindu community was facing “an existential crisis.”
“The individuals involved in this violence are not being brought under the law, nor are they being held accountable through the justice system. It creates the impression that the violence will continue,” Karmaker said.
Islamists reclaim influence
The surge in attacks against Hindus has unfolded alongside the reemergence of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, and its student wing. After years on the political sidelines because of bans, arrests and sustained crackdowns under Hasina’s government, the party sees the election as an opportunity to reclaim influence.
Jamaat-e-Islami anchors a broader Islamist alliance of 11 parties, among them the student-led National Citizen Party, or NCP, whose leaders played a central role in the 2024 uprising.
As concerns grow over what its return could mean for religious minorities, Jamaat-e-Islami has moved to recast its public image, even though it advocates Shariah, or Islamic law. It has organized public rallies featuring Hindu participants and nominated a Hindu community leader as one of its candidates.
Meanwhile, NCP has pledged to support citizens facing religious discrimination and said that if elected, it would establish a dedicated unit within the Human Rights Commission to protect minority rights.
Political analyst Altaf Parvez said that such decisions were largely symbolic. He said that other political parties, including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, had also failed minorities by nominating only a handful of candidates — a move, he said, that didn’t reflect a genuine political commitment to inclusive politics.
Parvez said a systematic pattern of attacks was taking place in rural areas to inject more fear among the minorities before the vote.
“It will impact the participation of the voters from the minority communities in the next elections too,” he said.
Tensions rise with India
Attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh have also inflamed tensions with neighboring India, prompting protests by Hindu nationalist groups and criticism from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
India’s Foreign Ministry recently accused Bangladesh of downplaying a “disturbing pattern of recurring attacks” on Hindus, saying such violence was wrongly blamed on personal or political disputes. Bangladesh, in turn, described India’s criticism as “systematic attempts” to stoke anti-Bangladesh sentiments.
The dispute has spilled into diplomacy and sporting events. Both sides have suspended some visa services and accused each other of failing to protect diplomatic missions. Protests in India led cricket officials to bar a Bangladeshi player from the Indian Premier League tournament, followed by Bangladesh’s boycott of this month’s World Cup in India.
Sreeradha Datta, a Bangladesh expert at India’s Jindal School of International Affairs, said that India’s concerns were “legitimate.”
“Hindus in Bangladesh are a very vulnerable group that can’t defend themselves, and Yunus’ administration is in exit mode and deliberately looking the other way,” she said.
Families demand justice
For those caught in the violence, the losses have been deeply personal.
When word of Das’ killing reached his home village in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh district, disbelief settled in among relatives and neighbors. Many said they watched images of his killing on their phones.
“When people say they saw it on their phones, my chest feels like it is going to burst,” his father said.
Das was known as a quiet, well-behaved man. He was also the sole breadwinner for his family, relatives said, and his death has left his wife and mother facing an uncertain future.
His mother, Shefali Rani Das, said the family is seeking justice for the killing.
“They beat him, hung him from a tree, and burned him. I demand justice,” she said.
Across Bangladesh, Hindus watched the recorded images on their phones with dread. Protests erupted in Dhaka and other cities, with demonstrators demanding justice and greater protections. The interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, ordered an investigation, and police said that about a dozen people were arrested.
But human rights groups and Hindu leaders say the killing wasn’t an isolated act, but part of a wider surge in attacks on the minority community, fueled by rising polarization, the reemergence of Islamists and what they describe as a growing culture of impunity. Among Hindus, fear has grown more pervasive as the Muslim-majority nation moves toward a national election on Feb. 12.
“No one feels safe anymore,” said Ranjan Karmaker, a Dhaka-based Hindu human rights activist. “Everyone is terrified.”
Surge in attacks
Hindus make up a small minority in Bangladesh, about 13.1 million people, or roughly 8 percent of the country’s population of 170 million, while Muslims make up 91 percent.
The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, an umbrella group representing minority communities, says it documented more than 2,000 incidents of communal violence since the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a mass uprising in August 2024.
The group recorded at least 61 killings, 28 instances of violence against women — among them rape and gang rape — and 95 attacks on places of worship involving vandalism, looting and arson. It has also accused the Yunus-led administration of routinely dismissing or downplaying reports of such violence.
When contacted by The Associated Press for a response, an official from Yunus’ press team declined to comment. The administration headed by Yunus has consistently denied claims that it has failed to ensure adequate protection for minority communities and insisted that most incidents aren’t driven by religious hostility.
Previous elections in Bangladesh have also seen increases in violence, with religious minorities often bearing the brunt. But with Hasina’s Awami League party barred from contesting elections and with her living in exile in India, many Hindus fear the worst as they have long been viewed as aligned with Hasina.
Karmaker, the rights activist, said that Hindus are often perceived as voting en masse for one side, a perception that heightens their vulnerability. He said that the community was also gripped by fear because of a culture of impunity, and near-weekly incidents, warning that in some parts of the country the Hindu community was facing “an existential crisis.”
“The individuals involved in this violence are not being brought under the law, nor are they being held accountable through the justice system. It creates the impression that the violence will continue,” Karmaker said.
Islamists reclaim influence
The surge in attacks against Hindus has unfolded alongside the reemergence of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, and its student wing. After years on the political sidelines because of bans, arrests and sustained crackdowns under Hasina’s government, the party sees the election as an opportunity to reclaim influence.
Jamaat-e-Islami anchors a broader Islamist alliance of 11 parties, among them the student-led National Citizen Party, or NCP, whose leaders played a central role in the 2024 uprising.
As concerns grow over what its return could mean for religious minorities, Jamaat-e-Islami has moved to recast its public image, even though it advocates Shariah, or Islamic law. It has organized public rallies featuring Hindu participants and nominated a Hindu community leader as one of its candidates.
Meanwhile, NCP has pledged to support citizens facing religious discrimination and said that if elected, it would establish a dedicated unit within the Human Rights Commission to protect minority rights.
Political analyst Altaf Parvez said that such decisions were largely symbolic. He said that other political parties, including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, had also failed minorities by nominating only a handful of candidates — a move, he said, that didn’t reflect a genuine political commitment to inclusive politics.
Parvez said a systematic pattern of attacks was taking place in rural areas to inject more fear among the minorities before the vote.
“It will impact the participation of the voters from the minority communities in the next elections too,” he said.
Tensions rise with India
Attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh have also inflamed tensions with neighboring India, prompting protests by Hindu nationalist groups and criticism from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
India’s Foreign Ministry recently accused Bangladesh of downplaying a “disturbing pattern of recurring attacks” on Hindus, saying such violence was wrongly blamed on personal or political disputes. Bangladesh, in turn, described India’s criticism as “systematic attempts” to stoke anti-Bangladesh sentiments.
The dispute has spilled into diplomacy and sporting events. Both sides have suspended some visa services and accused each other of failing to protect diplomatic missions. Protests in India led cricket officials to bar a Bangladeshi player from the Indian Premier League tournament, followed by Bangladesh’s boycott of this month’s World Cup in India.
Sreeradha Datta, a Bangladesh expert at India’s Jindal School of International Affairs, said that India’s concerns were “legitimate.”
“Hindus in Bangladesh are a very vulnerable group that can’t defend themselves, and Yunus’ administration is in exit mode and deliberately looking the other way,” she said.
Families demand justice
For those caught in the violence, the losses have been deeply personal.
When word of Das’ killing reached his home village in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh district, disbelief settled in among relatives and neighbors. Many said they watched images of his killing on their phones.
“When people say they saw it on their phones, my chest feels like it is going to burst,” his father said.
Das was known as a quiet, well-behaved man. He was also the sole breadwinner for his family, relatives said, and his death has left his wife and mother facing an uncertain future.
His mother, Shefali Rani Das, said the family is seeking justice for the killing.
“They beat him, hung him from a tree, and burned him. I demand justice,” she said.
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