News
European Medicines Agency targeted by Cyberattack
December 2020 by Oliver Cronk, Chief IT Architect, EMEA, Tanium
Recently the European Medicines Agency, which is responsible for authorising the use of vaccines within the EU, reported it had been victim to a cyberattack. The agency has currently launched an investigation, although it is unclear if the attack was successful. This comes after a string of attacks recently occurring within COVID-19 supply chains globally and the US healthcare sector.
An expert comment from cybersecurity provider Tanium’s Chief IT Architect, EMEA, Oliver Cronk.
"It’s disappointing to hear about the European Medicine Agency (EMA) being targeted by cyber attackers, but unfortunately it doesn’t come as a surprise. Any organisation that holds valuable data is at some point likely to be targeted, and right now there are few things more valuable than Covid-19 vaccine data.
’Whilst it’s true that suspected nation state attacks like this are hard to defend against due to their sophistication, it’s important to remember that if basic security measures are followed then it’s far less likely that an attack will be successful. These measures include; ensuring that regular IT patches and updates are being applied, having a strategy in place to secure a remote workforce and providing training to all staff about not clicking links on malicious phishing emails. These actions may sound obvious, but they are often not undertaken which offers attackers an easy route into the organisation’s network.’ - Oliver Cronk, Chief IT Architect, EMEA at Tanium
