COVID-19 Vaccine Storage Hit by Ransomware

Mengele Pharma announced this morning that their Schenectady, NY warehouse had been hit by a ransomware attack. All facility control systems, including the ultra-refrigeration system for the storage of the initial manufacturing run of their new COVID-19 vaccine were shut down. Wolfgang Gerhard, company President, acknowledged that there are concerns about the potential effects on the efficacy of the 20 million doses of vaccine stored in the facility.

General Buck Turgidson, Director of the Critical Infrastructure Security Operations Center, confirmed that the CI-SOP was working with Mengele Pharma on rectifying the problem. “Our investigators are on the scene and working with the facility security team to determine the extent of the problem,” Turgidson told reporters; “Preliminary indicators would seem to tell us that the attackers had been active on the system for at least a week prior to the shutdown.”

The Mengele vaccine requires storage at -50˚C. It can be held briefly, for up to a day at temperatures as high as 0˚C. Higher temperatures cause the vaccine to break down and quickly loose efficacy.

Clark Stanley, spokesperson for the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), told reporters that Mengele will have to be able to demonstrate that the storage conditions, including ultra-refrigeration met the required standards set for this vaccine before any distributions will be able to be made from this warehouse. “Failure to be able to document storage temperatures will not be acceptable,” Clark said.

Clark did tell reporters that Mengele was in the final stages of receiving emergency approval of their vaccine. The FDA and the company were making plans to be able to start distribution sometime in early December.

Sources at Mengele that are not authorized to talk to the press report that the company has paid the 1-milllion bit coin ransom but has not received the code necessary to regain control of their systems.

Sen TJ Kong told reporters this morning that his Committee would be looking at requiring the CI-SOP to begin providing cyber-protection to all vaccine manufacturers whether or not they had requested protection. “Vaccine manufacturers that are planning on taking Federal money for vaccine distribution or manufacture should be required to cooperate with CI-SOP.”

Mengele has not received any federal research funding for the development of their vaccine.

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