The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity wing says it has put heightened defense measures for health-care-focused organizations and research facilities in place as foreign government-backed hackers continue to try to steal U.S. coronavirus research.
“I just want you to know that we have stepped up our protections of [the Department of Health and Human Services] and [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] — our federally-funded research organizations,” Bryan Ware, assistant director of DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told industry executives Friday. “[We’ve] significantly accelerated that work.”
CISA is regularly scanning the internet-connected devices of top pharmaceutical companies and research institutions for vulnerabilities and trying to get them fixed quickly “because we are seeing adversaries that are targeting them right now,” Ware said on a webinar focused on CISA contracting opportunities
