France: hybrid attack on cold stores using donor blood

Hackers gained access to the control systems and raised the temperatures in three cold stores containing vital blood products

Cold stores containing stocks of blood from donors were the target of a hybrid cyber-attack directed at a refrigeration system operator at the French Blood Institute. The Health Minister and the Blood Institute have announced that this incident had “no impact on public health”. The French national blood transfusion service stated that hackers gained access to the control systems and raised the temperatures in three cold stores housing vital blood products from -30 degrees to 110 degrees, according to Bfmtv.

So, following on from supermarket fridges, it is now the fridges used to store blood donations that have come under the hackers’ scrutiny. “The EFS has not been the direct target of a cyber security incident. It was our refrigeration systems supplier that suffered a cyber incident yesterday, which potentially affected some of the monitoring and control systems for the cold stores installed at certain EFS sites,” the organisation clarified. These cold stores contained ‘blood products’ awaiting delivery to healthcare facilities, as well as ‘samples destined for our biobanks’, the EFS stated. Specifically, these included, amongst other things, “plasma bags intended for patient transfusion and plasma bags intended for fractionation by the LFB (Laboratoire français du fractionnement et des biotechnologies)”.

Thanks to its monitoring and alarm systems, the organisation was able to identify anomalies quickly and take measures that prevented any contamination of blood products or samples. “Depending on the circumstances, as soon as the incident occurred, the affected equipment was either secured – without any impact on the products or samples – or deactivated, with the products stored in those cold stores being transferred to other facilities as a precaution,” stated the EFS. “No impact on health has been identified and no loss of blood products has been recorded. The products stored in the affected equipment have been transferred or secured,” it added. In addition to implementing these precautionary measures and transferring the products, the organisation has disabled remote access to the affected equipment, the Ministry of Health – which is collaborating with the EFS – told BFMTv. The Ministry is also working with the National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI). “At present, the situation is under control and is subject to enhanced monitoring,” the Ministry of Health assured, adding that “technical investigations are underway”. The aim is to determine the operational procedures and circumstances of the incident, the total number of devices potentially affected, as well as the conditions and timeframe for the safe reactivation of the affected systems.

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