WANAQUE, N.J., Sept. 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hetherington Group and the Healthcare Distribution Alliance to recognize 75+ industry leaders and public agencies that collaborated at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Comprised of C-Suite healthcare, pharmaceutical, transportation, cybersecurity, and Department of Defense personnel, Operation Vax (OPVAX) helped to ensure the safe and secure transportation, storage, and distribution of the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines in the United States and abroad.
This operation developed out of a simple phone call between two good friends: Chuck Forsaith of the Healthcare Distribution Alliance and the Hetherington Group's President, Cynthia Hetherington—and grew into a distinguished collaborative effort that assisted in ensuring the safe and secure movement and delivery of Covid-19 vaccinations to millions of Americans and to foreign nations.
"We are proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the nation's brightest leaders, who were called upon to help protect our global community from a deadly virus and nefarious players seeking to disrupt the vaccine from reaching the neediest," stated Hg's President Cynthia Hetherington.
"I can't be more appreciative of the efforts put forth by Cynthia, her team, and those she reached out to, to assist in this very important, very critical effort," stated Chuck Forsaith of the HDA. "The incredibly generous donated offers to help industry better protect the integrity of the COVID vaccine supply chain is truly remarkable. While I always knew my good friend was 'connected,' what I didn't fully appreciate was how vast those connections actually were—and how much goodwill they could generate."
Operation Vax relied on security experts, open-source intelligence gatherers, and boots-on-the-ground monitoring to identify and help thwart persons and entities seeking to disrupt, destroy, or steal vaccines. During bi-weekly meetings, Operation Vax members shared vital intelligence that enabled security experts to monitor groups and people of interest, perform location-specific event searches, and track risk on open and deep web sources. Global cybersecurity vendors Echosec Systems, Ltd, iThreat, and DarkOwl donated their services and platforms to the collaborative effort.
Over the course of OPVAX, analysts collected over 105,000 open and dark web sources reporting on potential threats to the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. From there, analysts triaged 45,000 of those reports for further analysis—resulting in perpetual risk and vulnerability notifications to the OPVAX team.
About Hetherington Group (Hg)
Hg provides online intelligence to the financial, logistics, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and telecommunications industries. With over 20 years of global experience, we conduct online investigations and provide risk intelligence in corporate due diligence and fraud, asset recovery, and background checks.
About the Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HAD)
HDA is the national organization representing primary pharmaceutical distributors — the vital link between the nation's pharmaceutical manufacturers and pharmacies, hospitals, long-term care facilities, clinics and others nationwide.
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Phone: 973.706.7525
Email: sara@hetheringtongroup.com
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