LONDON (Reuters) – Suspected North Korean hackers have tried to break into the systems of British drugmaker AstraZeneca in recent weeks, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, as the company races to deploy its vaccine for the COVID-19 virus.
The hackers posed as recruiters on networking site LinkedIn and WhatsApp to approach AstraZeneca staff with fake job offers, the sources said. They then sent documents purporting to be job descriptions that were laced with malicious code designed to gain access to a victim’s computer.
Releated – ‘NO ONE who got the Oxford/AstraZeneca dose that had 90% success rate was aged over 55’
Oxford’s trial results this week suggested the vaccine is somewhere between 62 and 90 per cent effective, depending on the dosage people are given.
The jab turned out to be most effective among 2,741 volunteers accidentally only given a half-dose the first time they had the injection, followed by a full dose. But none of those were over 55, according to reports, meaning they didn’t represent the vulnerable group who will rely on the vaccine in the real world.
Scientists said claiming the vaccine could be 90 per cent effective for everyone based on that chance result was ‘shaky science’ and its manufacturer, AstraZeneca, yesterday announced it would carry out another clinical trial to confirm the results.
