Newsroom
First it was supermarket freezers. Now, cooling equipment used by France’s national blood service has reportedly been targeted in a cyberattack, as retailers across Europe deal with the fallout from hackers tampering with their fridges and freezers. No link between the incidents has been confirmed.
The French weekly Le Canard enchaîné reported that the attack targeted Coolworld, a contractor that maintains refrigerated containers for the blood service. Some units holding samples from blood donors were reportedly reset from minus 30°C to 110°C. How hot the units actually got remains unclear.
An overnight technician noticed the temperature rising, the blood service said, according to Anadolu. France’s Health Ministry said the incident caused no disruption to operations.
The report comes after supermarkets in Belgium, Sweden, Luxembourg, Ireland and Estonia were among those that reported refrigeration problems Monday. Carrefour said 15 of its Belgian stores were hit. A supermarket in southern Sweden said it had to throw away affected food after hackers set its fridges and freezers to 50°C. Similar attacks hit French retailers last month.
The incidents show what can go wrong when cooling equipment can be controlled remotely. In Sweden, supermarket chain Coop told Reuters that seven affected stores were back up and running after their refrigeration systems were disconnected from the internet. At the French blood service, it was a technician on duty who caught the temperature rising.
