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

Re: CDC stockpiling HPV shots?

[guruevi]

They stockpile vaccines specifically for this reason. A big fire, apparently a simple virus that every decent OS and AV wouldnâ(TM)t run or even market upset could cause companies like Merck to reduce or stop output. The theory is that in those cases the CDC could set up other production lines whilst using the stockpile.

Re:Oh please

[TheRealHocusLocus]

So what we have here is a general failure to take responsibility. And you can't blame it all on the NSA. Not by a long shot.

[respectfully] sure I can... on the NSA. All of it. Sure shot.

In fact this might be the first directly accountable and provable example of a particular virus-something 'created' in a laboratory that escaped from the laboratory and triggered a general epidemic... cybernetic OR biological. I can blame NSA because on the day it was discovered, it would have required a criminal amount of arrogance (to be fair, or stupidity) to assume that other malevolent actors would not independently discover Eternalblue. And let's toss in the fact that most of affected systems in the world were and still are, within the USA.

So their oath is to protect and defend the Constitution and close second, uphold the National Security interests of the United States. What part of those oaths were upheld? Just going on affected system stats, I'll argue that by absence of any disclosure policy for this certain case of national vulnerability -- and their observed failure to do so -- plus the significant chance it would be independently discovered... that NSA was either deliberately targeting Americans... or they have irresponsibly bad aim.

Re: Thanks, NSA

[arth1]

Look something up about VD before you spout off nonsense.

Unlike you?

You carry a form of HPV because itÃ(TM)s a normal thing to have

Not the kinds that this vaccine helps against, HPV 16 and 18, which are types of HPV that's almost entirely sexually transmitted. You most assuredly did not have those on your fingers in your youth. Well, unless you grew up in a very special family...

The vaccine is useful because people, and especially teens do have unprotected sex. Increased availability and use of condoms would help against these as well as many other VDs, and you wouldn't be caught with your pants down, so to speak, when there's a shortage of the vaccine.