On Friday, the Europen Union drug regulator announced that the confidential documents related to the Covid-19 vaccines were stolen and released on the web by the hackers after being heavily manipulated and modified by them.
Given the Covid 19 pandemic, a vaccine’s urgency has resulted in various pharmaceutical companies to step forward and develop the most awaited covid-19 vaccine. While the experiments related to the vaccine were in progress, the information thus obtained was then stored in the form of confidential documents. These documents were supposed to be used for the further evaluation of the vaccine. However, they were stolen by hackers to spread wrong information to the public.
The hackers did not only steal the confidential documents, but they also released them on the internet to reach the general public. However, before releasing these secret documents to the public, they made sure to make some crucial changes in the experiments and recordings. The documents were carefully ‘manipulated’ by these hackers to spread misinformation among the public and scare them further.
The hackers have leaked this wrong information to suit their objectives of undermining people’s trust in the vaccine itself. Their goal was to create a bad image of the vaccine by spreading disinformation and terrorizing the public.
The EU regulator did not specify exactly which information was manipulated wrongly and where the changes were made but its intention is clear to everyone. The hackers wanted to create a negative image of famous pharmaceutical companies who are currently working on the development of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Some of the statements were deleted, some were modified from the original vaccine-related documents that were supposed to be highly confidential. The hackers also added some reports by themselves as they found to be suitable and sensitive information.
While it is still not clear who was the mastermind behind this operation, the results of this would impact the Europeans’ health in general as they start to look down on the vaccines. The hackers’ intention seems to be a grudge against these companies or to reduce competition further by creating their bad public image.
The companies mentioned that while there was a great urgency to manufacture the vaccines due to a surge in the cases of Covid-19, they still focused heavily on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines so that they work well in all situations. The health of the people holds utmost importance to these pharmaceutical manufacturers and they perform all the tests properly for the same reason.
This means that the vaccines are completely safe for the use of the general public as safety considerations have always been their priority. Such disinformation must be avoided by everyone as it can create an unnecessary panic amongst the people. It can also deteriorate the already worse situation that the pandemic has created in the world.