Race for coronavirus vaccine starts a new grand game of spy versus spy

In short, every major spy service around the globe is trying to find out what everyone else is up to

Chinese intelligence hackers were intent on stealing coronavirus vaccine data, so they looked for what they believed would be an easy target. Instead of simply going after pharmaceutical companies, they conducted digital reconnaissance on the University of North Carolina and other schools doing cutting-edge research.

They were not the only spies at work. Russia’s premier intelligence service, the SVR, targeted vaccine research networks in the United States, Canada and Britain, espionage efforts that were first detected by a British spy agency monitoring international fiber optic cables. Iran, too, has drastically stepped up its attempts to steal information about vaccine research,