Cybercrime Group Claims Novo Nordisk Hack

The hack-and-leak group FulcrumSec has claimed responsibility for breaching Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical giant, in March. The group stated it accessed the company’s systems via a GitHub token, cloning repositories and extracting credentials. Novo Nordisk confirmed the breach last week, revealing hackers accessed internal IT systems and exfiltrated data associated with clinical trials, though it emphasized the information was pseudonymized and not directly tied to patient identities. FulcrumSec claimed to have stolen approximately 1.3 terabytes of data, including intellectual property such as undisclosed drug programs, proprietary compound structures, Dicerna’s RNAi pipeline, and private AI models. The group provided a list of over 700,000 files as proof of the breach and shared stolen credentials in correspondence with Novo Nordisk. Initially, the hackers demanded a $25 million ransom, but the company reportedly did not comply. FulcrumSec is now threatening to leak the stolen data, though Novo Nordisk has not yet been added to the group’s Tor-based leak site. The company has not disclosed further details about the breach’s scope or potential impact on operations or patients. The incident follows a pattern of high-profile cyberattacks targeting pharmaceutical and research organizations, raising concerns about intellectual property theft and data security in the healthcare sector. Novo Nordisk’s response has focused on reassuring patients about the protection of their personal data while investigating the full extent of the breach.