Hackers claim breach of Novo Nordisk after $25M ransom

A cyber extortion group has claimed responsibility for a major data breach at pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, alleging it stole over a terabyte of sensitive information after the company refused to pay a $25 million ransom. The Danish drugmaker, known for its weight-loss and diabetes medications Ozempic and Wegovy, publicly disclosed the cybersecurity incident on June 11, confirming unauthorized access to a limited number of internal IT systems.

The hacking group, FulcrumSec, claims it infiltrated Novo Nordisk's networks in March and spent more than two months inside the company's systems. The group alleges it exfiltrated approximately 1.3 terabytes of data across more than 700,000 files. According to FulcrumSec, the stolen information includes source code, proprietary details on both marketed and unreleased drugs, clinical trial data, employee and physician information, manufacturing facility details, and files related to internal artificial intelligence models.

Novo Nordisk has confirmed that some personal data related to clinical trial participants was accessed. The company stated this data was pseudonymized, containing patient IDs, trial participation information, sex,...