COVID-19 prompts spy agencies’ mission shift that is ‘reminiscent of the space race’
September 7, 2020 Leave a comment
The worldwide competition to invent a vaccine that can curtail the spread of COVID-19 has prompted a mission shift in major intelligence agencies around the world, which is “reminiscent of the space race”, according to The New York Times. In an article published on Saturday, the paper cited “interviews with current and former intelligence officials and others tracking the espionage efforts”, who suggest that the mission shift observed in spy agencies worldwide has been among the fastest in history.
According to The New York Times, “every major spy service around the globe is trying to find out what everyone else is up to” in coronavirus research, and “to steal information about vaccine research”. Much of this biomedical espionage is taking place in international bodies, such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO), where spies try to access useful data from rival countries. The paper said that the Central Intelligence Agency and other Western spy agencies are closely watching their rivals, including Chinese and Russian operatives, inside the WHO.
Meanwhile, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is “has moved to protect [American] universities and corporations doing the most advanced work” on the virus, including the University of North Carolina (UNC). The paper said that UNC’s Epidemiology Department came under a sustained attack by foreign hackers recently, as have major American pharmaceutical research companies, including Gilead Sciences, Novavax and Moderna. In other cases, foreign spies have tried to gain physical proximity to biomedical researchers. According to The Times, part of the reason why the administration of US President Donald Trump decided to shut down the Chinese consulate in Huston in July, was because it believed Chinese spies had used it as a base from where to make contacts with American biomedical researchers.
Officially, America’s stance on the coronavirus espionage race is purely defensive. But, according to The Times, American spy agencies are also trying to find out what Russian, Chinese and Iranian scientists have in their possession, in an attempt to see if is stolen. As they do that, “they could encounter information on those countries’ research and collect it”, said the paper.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 07 September 2020 | Permalink
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