French blood banks hacked amid ‘deeply concerning’ wave of fridge and freezer cyberattacks in Europe

In a recent spate of cyberattacks in Europe against fridges and freezers, the latest assault hit France’s national blood service, where hackers gained control of cold storage systems at medical facilities and turned up the temperature.

The French Blood Establishment, EFS, told media that the facilities managed to save the blood supplies and there has been “no loss of blood products.” But the attacks come after supermarkets in several European countries experienced hacks of their fridges and freezers leading to the loss of millions of Euros in products.

Last month, hackers hit hundreds of supermarkets across France where temperatures were forced up to 50 degrees C overnight in what officials called an “unprecedented” attack. Food losses and fires were reported after “connected refrigerators ⁠in several ​major food retailers across France.” What followed was a wave of similar attacks across the continent where fridges and freezers at stores in the U.K., Italy and Germany were recently hacked, following attacks in Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden.

“They are a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine ​consumers’ confidence in it – a warning that we must take seriously,” said EU Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen. “The repeated occurrence of these cyberattacks is deeply concerning.”

Connected fridges can now be controlled and monitored remotely through internet-connected software but with this comes vulnerabilities. Hackers can exploit publicly reachable, legacy or unpatched remote refrigeration management controllers that may use default passwords or weak date-based administrative bypasses.

“Retail is an easy target because retail chains run enormous estates of refrigeration controllers, building management systems, door access panels and point-of-sale gear,” Tom Hegel of the cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, told Reuters.

Cybersecurity experts so far have not figured out who’s behind the attacks. Russian hacking groups are a possibility as well as Iranian hacktivists or nation-state hackers. It might also be kids pulling off what have so far been very expensive pranks. Cybersecurity researchers at some firms have installed fake software as honeypots in an attempt to gather information about the hackers.

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