The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are set to officially announce that Chinese hackers are actively trying to steal American research on a possible coronavirus vaccine, as reported by Breitbart.
Referencing a previous report by the Wall Street Journal, the joint warning will warn that hackers directly connected to the Chinese government are “working to steal from American institutions intellectual property and health information related to coronavirus vaccines and treatment,” and that the pending cyber-attack “may come within days.”
The New York Times claims to have seen a leaked version of the official warning, which allegedly says that the coming hack attempt will involve “China’s most skilled hackers and spies,” as well as “nontraditional actors” including “researchers and students that…are being activated to steal data from inside academic and private laboratories.”
China has long been guilty of intellectual property theft from the United States, which has created long-standing trade tensions with the U.S. prior to the election of Donald Trump as President, who subsequently cracked down on such theft with stricter tariffs.
Such an attempted hack would be the latest in a long line of corrupt and abusive actions by the Chinese government since the outbreak of the coronavirus, which has ranged from selling inferior medical equipment to other countries, to pressuring the World Health Organization to delaying global warnings about the spread of the virus.