Data breach at Dr Reddy’s shuts down data centre services, promises to return within 24 hours

By Team Newsable | First Published Oct 23, 2020, 2:12 PM IST

“In the wake of a detected cyber-attack, we have isolated all data centre services to take required preventive actions,” Dr Reddy's told the Bombay Stock Exchange on Thursday.

Hyderabad: Dr Reddy’s Laboratories on Thursday said it had “isolated” its data centre services after a cyber attack.

The Hyderabad-headquartered drug maker reported the data breach days after it received regulatory approvals to conduct human trials of a Covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by a Russian research institute.

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Dr Reddy’s and Russia’s sovereign wealth fund RDIF have received approval from the Drugs Controller General of India to conduct adaptive phase II and III human clinical trials for the Sputnik V vaccine in the country after filing a revised protocol.

“In the wake of a detected cyber-attack, we have isolated all data centre services to take required preventive actions,” Dr Reddy’s told the Bombay Stock Exchange on Thursday.

“We are anticipating all services to be up within 24 hours and we do not foresee any major impact on our operations due to this incident,” said Mukesh Rathi, CIO, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories.

Also read: Coronavirus: India reports 54,366 new COVID-19 cases, 690 deaths in single day

According to agency reports, the company’s plants in India, Brazil, Russia, the UK and the US were impacted by the data breach.

The attack, the exact nature of which is not yet public, has reportedly also forced the firm to temporarily shut down operations at its major manufacturing facilities across the world. Pharma experts said this is necessary to minimise the impact of a breach of cyber security.

In response to an email sent by Dr Reddy’s, company that will conduct Russian vaccine trials, isolates its data after cyber attack to confirm whether it had shut down production operations, a spokesperson said the company had “no further comments” to add to its statement to the BSE.

According to reports, pharmaceutical industry experts said data breaches at pharma companies often turned out to be “serious and critical” events that called for measures such as halting production while the breach was analysed and security issues were plugged.

Pharma firms rely on the integrity of data to ensure the quality of their medicines, the experts said. In the event of a breach, operations are stopped until the companies can be certain that

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