Why are ‘hostile’ states trying to hack into UK coronavirus research? Why not pool resources?
Doesn’t this say everything about the stupidity of our politicians – not just in the UK but across the globe.
Having created an atmosphere of distrust for no particular reason than they don’t like Johnny Foreigner’s politics, now that we should all be working together to beat Covid-19, it seems we’re trying to steal from each other instead.
And if Russia, Iran and China are trying to get into our research systems, what might the UK be trying to steal from them?
Hostile states are attempting to hack British universities and scientific facilities to steal research related to Covid-19, including vaccine development, cybersecurity experts have warned.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said the proportion of such targeted cyber-attacks had increased, branding the criminal activity “reprehensible”.
It is understood that nations including Iran and Russia are behind the hacking attempts, while experts have said China is also a likely perpetrator.
There are thought to be dozens of universities and institutions with biomedical capacity working on Covid-19 research, ranging from new diagnostic and antibody tests to experimental treatment.
However, it is understood there have been no successful attacks on universities or research institutions to date.
Saving lives is more important than international rivalries – to anybody who isn’t a jingoistic sabre-rattling fool.
The best thing to do is make all our research freely available – because then nobody will have to cover the same ground – and tell those foreign powers they didn’t need to go to the trouble of trying to steal it.
Source: Hostile states trying to steal coronavirus research, says UK agency | Espionage | The Guardian
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What’s truly shocking to me is the extent to which a disease has been ‘diagnosed’ through the distorting prism of politics, especially the Trump/Bolsonaro/Boris type.
I didn’t understand, until recently, how political bias caused a kind of mental blindness to an urgent reality. Truly frightening.
Of course, now, it’s all about the money, or rather, the wealth of the rich. Dividend forecasts are showing slashing cuts so it’s imperative that the workforce is forced back to work, “weened off furlough” according to our vile Health Secretary, so that the wealthy stay wealthy and “who cares how many die?” in the process.
I’m guessing that money is behind it, new drugs and vaccines are worth a fortune to Big Pharma who profit from any disease, illness or health emergency.
“including vaccine development” means potentially loadsa money.
That was my immediate reaction, Mike. I had actually believed that there already WAS a commitment to international co operation over finding a vaccine.
I think that Cuba already has a permanent commitment to inform the world of all their medical discoveries.(Which are not insignificant as they have invested heavily in pharmacological research.)
Yet nowhere on the main stream media have I heard any suggestion that this alleged “hacking” should be made unnecessary if all countries just combined forces in everybody’s interest.
In fact, the way the vaccine search is reported here is to refer to labs in Cambridge or Oxford as it there is a “race” between countries to get the treatment first. Once again, we are being led to believe that Britain is this mega world power that can solve medical problems on its own.
This notion of “British exceptionalism”,of course, lies behind so much of the Brexit vote. the idea that Britain can , somehow, “go it alone” and doesn’t need other countries to prosper.
For decades , the Tories and their business allies have know this was all guff but they need such beliefs to boost the Tory vote at election time. So we end up with Brexit and a slow response to Covid19 because the Tories don’t want to be seen to learn from, and rely on, other nationalities.
Nationalism kills!
I’m not sure I believe that anyone from a foreign country is trying to hack anything. Kid-hackers may be trying, but if the government know that attempts are being made, then they will know where they are, and could just say. But we must distrust Johnny Foreigner! Fear makes people compliant.
As you said, we ought to be working together with anyone and everyone who is doing research into cv-19, and I’m sure that universities and research labs would gladly collaborate with others… unless they are a private company hoping to make money out of humanity.
Also as you write, I wonder just what our own tame hackers are doing? To suggest that the UK never gets involved in trying to steal from others would be naive in the extreme.
Agreed.
This government sees profit as the sole reason for doing anything, along with other capitalist countries, so its all down to competition rather than peoples lives.