North Korea tried to hack Pfizer to obtain vaccine technology: Report

South Korean lawmaker Ha Tae-Keung said today that North Korea tried to obtain technology involving COVID-19 vaccine and treatment by using cyberwarfare to hack into Pfizer.

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The South Korean MP informed that Seoul's National Intelligence Service had briefed the country's lawmakers on North Korea's coronavirus vaccine hacking attempt.

Korea's Yonhap news agency also reported the incident citing National Intelligence Service sources. A confidential United Nations inquiry had earlier reported about a $281 million theft of assets from cryptocurrency last September with links to North Korea.

IBM had earlier warned it had uncovered a series of cyber attacks by state actors against companies involved in distributing COVID-19 vaccine doses. 

The IBM analysts had said purpose "may have been to harvest credentials, possibly to gain future unauthorized access to corporate networks and sensitive information relating to the COVID-19 vaccine distribution."

According to the Wall Street Journal, cybercriminals have also tried to attack several pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines including Johnson & Johnson, Novavax and AstraZeneca.

Spanish newspaper El Pais had earlier reported the country's laboratories were reportedly attacked by Chinese cyber criminals even as cold storage giant Americold reported a hack into its computer systems.