On October 22, 2020, India-based multinational pharmaceutical company Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Limited announced in a statement and a separate US securities filing that it experienced a ransomware attack on its networks that forced the company to temporarily isolate all impacted IT systems.
In a statement by Dr. Reddy’s CIO Mukesh Rathi to the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE), the company reported that it did not expect the ransomware incident to have a major impact on its operations, and expected all impacted systems would be restored within 24 hours. According to its Form 6-K, Dr. Reddy’s promptly engaged outside cybersecurity experts to contain, repair and investigate the incident; however, at the time of the report, the company was unable to determine if any data containing personally identifiable information had been compromised. According to the securities filing, Dr. Reddy’s was in the process of recovering and restoring all applications, and “all critical operations are being enabled in a controlled manner.”
Dr. Reddy’s recently launched COVID-19 treatment drugs Avigan (Favipiravir) and Remdesivir and is assisting with development of Russian COVID-19 vaccine candidate Sputnik V. For more in-depth discussion of the increasing risk of sophisticated cyberattacks against pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations working on COVID-related vaccines, treatments, and research, as well as ransomware attacks against the healthcare industry, please see the following Willkie client alerts:
Dr. Reddy’s Statement | Dr. Reddy’s Form 6-K