Antivirus

Pfizer has already run into coronavirus vaccine manufacturing issues

Pfizer was forced to cut its coronavirus vaccine production in half due to unforeseen manufacturing issues. Pfizer will ship 50 million doses worldwide in 2020 instead of 100 million. The company aims to produce more than 1 billion doses in 2021, as initially planned. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine regimen requires two separate shots, administered a few…

Pfizer was forced to cut its coronavirus vaccine production in half due to unforeseen manufacturing issues.
Pfizer will ship 50 million doses worldwide in 2020 instead of 100 million. The company aims to produce more than 1 billion doses in 2021, as initially planned.
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine regimen requires two separate shots, administered a few weeks apart.

“There are three key areas where, as with all vaccines, we must demonstrate success in order to seek approval for public use,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla wrote in a public letter in mid-March. “First, the vaccine must be proven effective, meaning it can help prevent COVID-19 disease in at least a majority of vaccinated patients. Second and equally important, the vaccine must be proven safe, with robust safety data generated from thousands of patients. And finally, we must demonstrate that the vaccine can be consistently manufactured at the highest quality standards.”

Since then, Pfizer and BioNTech have announced that the drug is highly effective against COVID-19, reaching 95% efficacy in the clinical trial’s Phase 3 stage. The vaccine is also safe, as volunteers only experienced transitory side-effects during the trial. And Pfizer must have demonstrated success at manufacturing the drug safely, as the two companies have already submitted the paperwork for emergency approvals. The UK already approved the vaccine for use, with vaccinations set to start soon. But Pfizer ran into some manufacturing issues and had to revise its estimates for the supply available worldwide in 2020.

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“Scaling up the raw material supply chain took longer than expected,” a company spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal. “And it’s important to highlight that the outcome of the clinical trial was somewhat later than the initial projection.”

Pfizer still aims to ship more than a billion doses in 2021 as it was originally planned. But the company will only make 50 million doses this year, half of the initial projection. This would be enough to vaccinate 25 million people, as the drug requires two doses a few weeks apart.

It’s unclear what caused the delay, and Pfizer did not explain the issue. “We were late,” a person familiar with the development process told WSJ. “Some early batches of the raw materials failed to meet the standards. We fixed it but ran out of time to meet this year’s projected shipments.”

Pfizer wouldn’t detail the shortfalls over ingredients. The report notes that vaccines typically contain “materials from suppliers that can include antivirus agents, antiseptic liquids, sterile water,” and the virus elements that would trigger an immune response without triggering the illness. In the case of this mRNA vaccine, the spike protein of the real SARS-CoV-2 virus is used in the vaccine so that the body can develop neutralizing antibodies to it.

Usually, a pharmaceutical company would start manufacturing the experimental drug only once it’s approved. That includes purchasing the raw materials and setting up the manufacturing lines and supply chains. However, Pfizer started months ago, even with no guarantee that the vaccine would work and reach the emergency use milestone.

“For this one, everything happened simultaneously,” the person familiar with Pfizer’s development process said. “We started setting up the supply chain in March, while the vaccine was still being developed. That’s totally unprecedented.”

Pfizer’s delay might be seen as a bad sign, but it’s also good news, signaling that companies will not cut safety corners. Regulators will continue to monitor the safety of coronavirus vaccines as well. Earlier this week, the head of the UK drug regulator said that batches of the vaccine would be tested in labs as vaccination campaigns begin, “so that every single vaccine that goes out meets the same high standards of safety.”
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Antivirus

Gamers at risk as scammers are using malware-infected cheats and mods to steal passwords and crypto — here’s how to stay safe

Cheats and mods are now frontlines for cybercrime targeting gamers’ wallets and private data Verified crypto wallets like MetaMask and Exodus are being drained through browser injection Trojan.Scavenger abuses overlooked flaws to disable browser safety and manipulate trusted extensions Gamers seeking performance enhancements or special abilities through third-party patches and mods may be unwittingly exposing


  • Cheats and mods are now frontlines for cybercrime targeting gamers’ wallets and private data
  • Verified crypto wallets like MetaMask and Exodus are being drained through browser injection
  • Trojan.Scavenger abuses overlooked flaws to disable browser safety and manipulate trusted extensions

Gamers seeking performance enhancements or special abilities through third-party patches and mods may be unwittingly exposing themselves to sophisticated malware, experts have warned.

Recent findings from Dr.Web revealed a malware family known as “Trojan.Scavenger” which targets Windows users by disguising itself as cheats or enhancements for popular games.

This seemingly harmless mod can ultimately compromise crypto wallets, password managers, and web browsers, posing serious risks to user privacy and digital assets.

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When cheats become covert threats

The infection chain begins when users download ZIP archives claiming to improve performance in games including the likes of Grand Theft Auto 5 or Oblivion Remastered.

These archives contain modified dynamic libraries, sometimes renamed with extensions like .ASI to resemble legitimate plugin formats.

When the user follows the installation instructions, the malicious library is placed in the same folder as the target game. If the game does not properly validate its libraries, the trojan loads automatically at startup.

In some cases, flaws in library search priorities are essential to the malware’s success, allowing it to hijack execution within the host application.

Once loaded, the malware establishes contact with a command-and-control server using encrypted communication. This process includes verifying encryption keys and checking timestamp consistency, which is meant to evade analysis and block antivirus detection.

The malware doesn’t stop with the initial payload. In more complex infections, it deploys additional trojans that embed themselves in Chromium-based browsers like Chrome, Edge, Opera, and Yandex.

These troj

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Antivirus

Major new malware strain targets crypto users via malicious ads – here’s what we know, and how to stay safe

Check Point finds thousands of ads promoting fake crypto apps The apps come with an infostealer malware targeting users The infostealer can bypass most antivirus protections Cryptocurrency users are being targeted by a highly sophisticated, widespread cybercriminal campaign with the goal of deploying malware capable of grabbing exchange and wallet information, essentially robbing the people


  • Check Point finds thousands of ads promoting fake crypto apps
  • The apps come with an infostealer malware targeting users
  • The infostealer can bypass most antivirus protections

Cryptocurrency users are being targeted by a highly sophisticated, widespread cybercriminal campaign with the goal of deploying malware capable of grabbing exchange and wallet information, essentially robbing the people of their tokens, experts from Check Point have warned.

Apparently active since March 2024, what makes this campaign, dubbed JSCEAL by the researchers, unique is the use of compiled JavaScript files (JSC), which allows the malware to remain hidden from most traditional antivirus solutions.

The criminals created fake cryptocurrency exchange and wallet apps, which come with an infostealer. They also created websites to host these apps, and managed to purchase thousands of advertisements on the internet to promote the scam. Check Point says that just in the European Union (EU), 35,000 malicious ads were served between January and June 2025.

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JSCEAL malware

“The use of Facebook’s Ad Library enabled us to estimate the campaign’s reach, while in a very conservative approach we can estimate the total reach of the malvertising campaign at 3.5 million users within the EU alone, and likely above 10 million users worldwide,” the researchers explained.

People who fall for the scam download an MSI installer which triggers “a sequence of profiling scripts” that gather critical system information. These scripts also use PowerShell commands to collect and exfiltrate data, in preparation of the final payload deployment.

This final payload is the JSCEAL malware, which steals crypto-related data such as credentials and private keys. The payload is executed through Node.js, it was said.

What makes this malware particularly dangerous is the use of compiled JavaScript files.

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Antivirus

From breached to bulletproof: The new rules of cybersecurity are about survival

Listen up, IT professionals. If you’re still treating cybersecurity like a checkbox exercise, you’re already three steps behind the attackers. The digital battlefield has changed, and the old rules no longer apply. Gone are the days when a firewall and antivirus software were enough to keep your organization safe…

Listen up, IT professionals. If you’re still treating cybersecurity like a checkbox exercise, you’re already three steps behind the attackers. The digital battlefield has changed, and the old rules no longer apply. Gone are the days when a firewall and antivirus software were enough to keep your organization safe…
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Antivirus

Nearly 8,500 small and medium businesses faced cyberattacks through mimic AI tools in 2025: Kaspersky

Global cybersecurity company Kaspersky said on Wednesday that nearly 8,500 users from small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) faced cyberattacks in the year so far, where “malicious or unwanted software” was disguised as popular online productivity tools. In April, Kaspersky — a cybersecurity company that provides antivirus and other security software for computers and mobile devices

Global cybersecurity company Kaspersky said on Wednesday that nearly 8,500 users from small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) faced cyberattacks in the year so far, where “malicious or unwanted software” was disguised as popular online productivity tools.
In April, Kaspersky — a cybersecurity company that provides antivirus and other security software for computers and mobile devices — said that widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies in recent years has provided “threat actors with sophisticated new tools to perpetrate attacks”…
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