COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Hacked

The Federal Bureau of Inquiry announced today that they were taking over the ECS-CERT investigation of an apparent hack of a protein analyzer at Hudson University that was being used in the evaluation of a new COVID-19 vaccine. ECS-CERT had confirmed that the report by Dr. Marty Beijerinck, the head of the University’s vaccine lab, that their test results were being remotely modified in an effort to discredit their vaccine’s efficacy.

Immanuel C. Securitage, ECS-CERT spokesman, said: “We found a vulnerability in the Robotron PrAnalysator that allowed a remote attacker to change the reported test results in network connected device. The device in the Vaccine Lab showed evidence that this vulnerability had been used to effect the reported results, showing that the Hudson vaccine was substantially less effective than it really was.”

Beijerinck explained to reporters that T-cells in an individual who had recovered from a COVID-19 infection contained a unique protein, Coronein-1, known to bind with sites on the surface of the virus. “The presence of this protein in a blood sample would indicate that a person had some level of immunity to the COVID-19 virus. We noticed during quality assurance testing that the system was not detecting the protein in samples that were spiked with known levels of Coronein-1.”

Beijerinck noted that ‎Adolf Mayer, a graduate student with programming experience that was part of the vaccine development team, suggested that the protein analyzer had been hacked. After a preliminary investigation by the Hudson University CERT ECS-CERT was contacted.

Securitage explained that the Medical Device Away Team (MDAT) was sent to the Hudson University lab to investigate the problem. They discovered a backdoor account in the PrAnalysator software that allowed the attacker to access the device and modify the reporting software so that only 25% of the positive tests were actually reported. That was immediately reported to the FBI’s COVID-19 Taskforce.

Johnathan Quest, the FBI spokesman, told reporters that the Taskforce had been formed to investigate cyber fraud related to the COVID-19 outbreak. “With the amount of money that is being invested in vaccine development and the competition for both financial and status reasons,” Quest explained “This definitely falls into the purview of  the Taskforce and will be a high profile investigation.”

CAUTIONARY NOTE: This is a future news story –