Nairametrics
  • Home
  • Exclusives
    • Financial Analysis
    • Corporate Stories
    • Interviews
    • Investigations
    • Metrics
  • Markets
    • Cryptos
    • Commodities
    • Equities
      • Dividends
      • Stock Market
    • Fixed Income
    • Market Views
    • Securities
  • Industries
    • Company News
    • Consumer Goods
    • Content Partners
    • Corporate deals
    • Corporate Press Releases
    • Energy
    • Entertainment
    • Financial Services
    • Hospitality & Travel
    • Manufacturing
    • Real Estate and Construction
    • Tech News
  • Economy
    • Get Data
    • Macro-Economic News
    • Research Analysis
  • Business News
  • Financial Literacy
    • Career tips
    • Personal Finance
  • Lifestyle
    • Billionaire Watch
    • Profiles
  • Opinions
    • Blurb
    • Op-Eds
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Exclusives
    • Financial Analysis
    • Corporate Stories
    • Interviews
    • Investigations
    • Metrics
  • Markets
    • Cryptos
    • Commodities
    • Equities
      • Dividends
      • Stock Market
    • Fixed Income
    • Market Views
    • Securities
  • Industries
    • Company News
    • Consumer Goods
    • Content Partners
    • Corporate deals
    • Corporate Press Releases
    • Energy
    • Entertainment
    • Financial Services
    • Hospitality & Travel
    • Manufacturing
    • Real Estate and Construction
    • Tech News
  • Economy
    • Get Data
    • Macro-Economic News
    • Research Analysis
  • Business News
  • Financial Literacy
    • Career tips
    • Personal Finance
  • Lifestyle
    • Billionaire Watch
    • Profiles
  • Opinions
    • Blurb
    • Op-Eds
No Result
View All Result
Nairametrics
No Result
View All Result
Home Business News Around the World

UK and allies accuse Russia of hacking and stealing COVID-19 vaccine data

Chike Olisah by Chike Olisah
July 16, 2020
in Around the World, Coronavirus
Vaccine, COVID-19: How the tables turned on Europe, FG travel restrictions on 13 countries: A little too late?, Slack founder takes a swipe at Microsoft, says Teams is not a threat https://www.marketwatch.com/story/slack-ceo-the-week-of-march-9-was-the-most-productive-in-our-companys-history-2020-04-13?mod=investing The founder of Slack, Stewart Butterfield, has taken a swipe at rival, Microsoft after Slack gained 2 million in about two weeks, increasing its connected users to 12.5 million in March 2020. Butterfield said Microsoft is no threat to Slack in the team-messaging app market, citing its performance and customer base. Butterfield said Microsoft has been pushing its rival, Teams, with free service for three years, despite this, no Slack enterprise customer has switched to Teams, “Microsoft has made a huge push the past three years with a free service, but can you find a single Slack enterprise customer who has switched to Teams?” “If Microsoft is such a competitive threat to Slack as it says, we would not have grown in sales and $1 million customers,” Butterfield told MarketWatch. He asserted that Slack's wide breadth, with up to 25,000 channels and security features give it a competitive advantage in the market. It took Slack about four years to move from 1 million simultaneously connected users on its platform to reach 10 million on March 10. The team-messaging app later hit 12.5 million on March 25, “The week of March 9 was the most productive in our company’s history,” he said. How both firms performed in March: Both Teams and Slack have both been having an impressive performance in March following the lockdown. The work-from-home caused by the Coronavirus outbreak has fueled the rise in Teams and Slack usage. Microsoft announced that teams recorded 2.7 billion meeting minutes on March 31, a 200 per cent increase from the 900 million recorded mid-March. Meanwhile, its Total video calls saw a 1000 per cent rise in same March. Before March ending, Teams accounted for 32 million on March 11 2020, but now clocks 44 million people on daily basis; a significant growth from the 20 million in November 2019. One of the biggest feat for Teams is Pentagon, which launched a Microsoft-based teleworking service for 4 million employees. Meanwhile, the cumulative number of minutes of active use of Slack during weekdays by all users globally now exceeds 1 billion. It was revealed that the company added 9,000 new paid customers from February 1 to March 25, an 80% increase over the full quarterly total the preceding two quarters. Slack also saw paid subscribers, which includes the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, KPMG and TD Ameritrade AMTD, -4.99 per cent, have climbed to 110,000. Slack experienced a surge in customers that spent more than $1 million annually on its product - the number climbed from 39 year-ago quarter to 70. This reflected in Slack's share, which gained 10 per cent this year, as its fiscal fourth-quarter revenue hit $181.9 million from $122 million a year ago; this is a 49 per cent surged. Scolding Microsoft further, Butterfield said, “I mean, 44 million is an impressive number, but that is out of 200 million Office 365 customers. That’s about a 20% adoption rate.” He added that, “The smaller startup has an advantage against the large, established company because its focus is narrowed on doing one thing better,” Butterfield said.
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linkedin

The UK and its allies have accused Russian state intelligence of hacking international research centres that are in a race to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. The UK, US and Canada on Thursday, said that Russian intelligence is attempting to steal information on those vaccines through irresponsible cyberattacks.

It is, however, unclear if the research facilities have been damaged or if the vaccine programmes have been set back as a result of the hacks but the officials warned that the cyber-attacks are ongoing.

UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said that vaccine and therapeutic sectors in multiple countries have been targeted by a group known as APT29, which it said is almost certainly part of Russian state intelligence. Security agencies in the U.S. and Canada later issued their own statements backing up the findings. Russia denied involvement.

RelatedPosts

COVID-19 Update in Nigeria

Canada to ease travel requirements as COVID-19 infection rates decline

The British Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, said, ‘’It is completely unacceptable that the Russian intelligence services are targeting those working to combat the coronavirus pandemic. While others pursue their selfish interests with reckless behaviour, the U.K. and its allies are getting on with the hard work of finding a vaccine and protecting global health.”

READ ALSO: NDIC to use AI, digital technology to tackle emerging threats to banks 

News continues after this ad


The Russians have however denied the allegations by the UK and its allies.

In an explanation to Bloomberg, the Russian spokesman said, ‘’We don’t know who may have hacked pharmaceutical companies and research centers. We can only say Russia has nothing to do with these attempts. We don’t accept such accusations.’’

News continues after this ad


The NCSC said APT29, which is also known as Cozy Bear or The Dukes, has targeted U.K., U.S. and Canadian vaccine research and development organizations. They said the campaign of malicious activity is ongoing, predominantly against government, diplomatic, think-tank, healthcare and energy targets to steal valuable intellectual property.

READ MORE: African Union begins COVID-19 vaccine trial group

A cybersecurity firm, Carbon Black, in a published analysis in March, said researchers have long linked APT29 to Russian intelligence agencies as for more than a decade, the group has carried out hacking campaigns that have targeted dozens of governments, research institutes, and corporations around the world.

The British claims were supported by partners at the Canadian Communications Security Establishment (CSE), the US Department for Homeland Security (DHS), Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA).

READ ALSO: This billionaire wants to reduce the number of hours people work

The NSA said organizations in the U.S. involved in vaccine development were also targeted by the hackers with the objective of the hacking and stealing information and intellectual property relating to the development and testing of Covid-19 vaccines.

The Canadian government said they are working with Westminster and Washington to stop these cyber-attacks.

Related

Tags: CoronavirusCovid-19 vaccineDominic RaabNational Cyber Security Centre

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

inq
avatrade
Stanbic bank
Mega Millions
UBN
Hot forex
Access Bank
Bankers Committee
First bank






    Business News | Stock Market | Money Market | Cryptos | Financial Literacy | SME |

    Recent News

    • Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN) Reaffirms its Commitment to Transformational Impact with the Release of its 2021/2022 Sustainability Report
    • Brain drain, tax and other economic effects of migration in Nigeria
    • Meet Kenya’s new President-elect- William Samoei Arap Ruto

    Follow us on social media:

    Recent News

    Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN) Reaffirms its Commitment to Transformational Impact with the Release of its 2021/2022 Sustainability Report

    Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN) Reaffirms its Commitment to Transformational Impact with the Release of its 2021/2022 Sustainability Report

    August 16, 2022
    Fake labs, travel frustrations, passengers allege COVID-19 test Scams at airport, Aviation, Nigerians hit with over 60% delayed and cancelled domestic flights in 2018

    Brain drain, tax and other economic effects of migration in Nigeria

    August 16, 2022
    • ABOUT US
    • CONTACT US
    • PRODUCTS
    • ANDROID APP
    • iOS APP
    • DISCLAIMER
    • CAREERS
    • PRIVACY POLICY

    © 2022 Nairametrics

    No Result
    View All Result
    • Home
    • Exclusives
      • Financial Analysis
      • Corporate Stories
      • Interviews
      • Investigations
      • Metrics
    • Markets
      • Cryptos
      • Commodities
      • Equities
        • Dividends
        • Stock Market
      • Fixed Income
      • Market Views
      • Securities
    • Industries
      • Company News
      • Consumer Goods
      • Content Partners
      • Corporate deals
      • Corporate Press Releases
      • Energy
      • Entertainment
      • Financial Services
      • Hospitality & Travel
      • Manufacturing
      • Real Estate and Construction
      • Tech News
    • Economy
      • Get Data
      • Macro-Economic News
      • Research Analysis
    • Business News
    • Financial Literacy
      • Career tips
      • Personal Finance
    • Lifestyle
      • Billionaire Watch
      • Profiles
    • Opinions
      • Blurb
      • Op-Eds

    © 2022 Nairametrics

    Social Media Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com