NotPetya Outbreak Left Merck Short of HPV Vaccine Gardasil (securityledger.com)

chicksdaddy shares a report from The Security Ledger: The NotPetya malware infection shut down pharmaceutical giant Merck's production of the pediatric vaccine GARDASIL last June, forcing the company to borrow the drug from a stockpile maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to meet demand, The Security Ledger reports. The anecdote was contained in a quarterly filing by Merck with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday. That filing also showed that the company continues to suffer financial fallout from the outbreak of the NotPetya malware in June, reducing both sales and revenue for the quarter by hundreds of millions of dollars. In its quarterly 8-k filing, Merck said that revenue for the quarter was "unfavorably impacted" by around $135 million due to "lost sales in certain markets related to the cyber-attack." Sales in the third quarter of 2017 were also reduced by around $240 million, which Merck chalked up to production shutdowns resulting from NotPetya. In a chilling insight into the extent of the disruption the malware caused to Merck's operations, the company disclosed that part of its quarterly losses were linked to the interruption of its production of GARDASIL, a vaccine used to prevent Human Papillomavirus (HPV) which is linked to certain cancers and other diseases. To make up for what it described as "overall higher demand than originally planned," Merck was forced to borrow the vaccine from a stockpile maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the company said.

Comments

Nobody to blame but themselves

[Gravis Zero]

Security isn't flashy or cool but when everything comes to a grinding halt because of malware then you have earned it because you refused to invest in basic security.

No tears shall be shed for the PHBs at Merck.

Re: Nobody to blame but themselves

[Andy Smith]

You leave your door unlocked. Someone steals your TV. 100% your fault?

Re: Thanks, NSA

[guruevi]

Look something up about VD before you spout off nonsense.

You carry a form of HPV because itâ(TM)s a normal thing to have and humans are the only reservoir, just like you have e.coli, and various fungi in your intestine. And just like cholerae, many strains are probably harmless. If you ever had any sort of wart or skin growth anywhere, probably when you were little, you have HPV.

Most diseases in humans are venereal after all and most diseases have more vectors to spread than just extramarital sex.