Novo Nordisk A/S (Novo Nordisk (NVO)) is looking into claims from a cyber extortion group called FulcrumSec, which says it stole more than a terabyte of data from the Danish drugmaker after a $25 million ransom demand went unpaid. The group is now considering selling parts of the haul.
According to a message posted by FulcrumSec on Tuesday, the group spent over two months inside Novo Nordisk's networks, quietly collecting data. The hackers say the stolen information includes source code, proprietary details about both marketed and unreleased drugs, clinical trial data, employee and patient information, details about production facilities, and even data related to the company's internal artificial intelligence models.
Novo Nordisk acknowledged the allegations in a statement, saying it is aware of claims that data allegedly copied from its systems without authorization has been published online. The company is investigating.
FulcrumSec told Reuters that representatives from Novo Nordisk contacted the group on June 3, about 48 hours after the hackers first reached out to unnamed company executives. According to the group, the company used a Proton Mail address to communicate and verified its identity by requesting specific files that, FulcrumSec claimed, only Novo Nordisk would have known to ask for.
The cybersecurity blog DataBreaches.net reported on June 15 that FulcrumSec said it gained access to Novo Nordisk's network in March. The blog also reported that the group shared alleged correspondence with the company starting June 1 and provided a list of more than 700,000 files totaling roughly 1.3 terabytes of data.
Interestingly, FulcrumSec said it would withhold information related to operational technology and software used to interact with sensors and machinery at Novo Nordisk's manufacturing facilities, describing this as a "harm-reduction strategy." Separately, malware research site VX-Underground reported on Monday that an unnamed hacker had compromised Novo Nordisk, but FulcrumSec stated that incident was unrelated to its own operation.
Despite the news, Novo Nordisk shares were up 1.93% at $44.95 at the time of publication on Wednesday.
