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The National Security Agency, as well as its counterparts in Britain and Canada, all said Thursday that they're seeing persistent attempts by Russian hackers to break into organizations working on a potential coronavirus vaccine. The Western intelligence agencies say they believe the hackers are part of the Russian group informally known as Cozy Bear. The intelligence agencies refer to it as APT29. (Myre, 7/16)

The hackers, who belong to a unit known variously as APT29, "the Dukes" or "Cozy Bear," are targeting vaccine research and development organizations in the three countries, the officials said in a joint statement. The unit is one of the two Russian spy groups that penetrated the Democratic Party's computers in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. “It is completely unacceptable that the Russian intelligence ­services are targeting those working to combat the coro­navirus pandemic,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said. (Nakashima, Booth and Coletta, 7/16)

Efforts to develop a vaccine have become an international arms race, with winners seen as benefiting from access to treatments that would help improve national health and economic stability. Those factors make the scientific secrets behind vaccine development valuable. (Strasburg and Volz, 7/16)

It was unclear whether any useful information was stolen. But British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, “It is completely unacceptable that the Russian Intelligence Services are targeting those working to combat the coronavirus pandemic.” He accused Moscow of pursuing “selfish interests with reckless behavior.” (Tucker, Lawless and Kirka, 7/17)