Hackers Hit French Blood Plasma Freezers in Latest Attack on Cooling Companies

Hackers changed the temperature settings on freezer units used by the French Blood Establishment to store blood plasma for operations, Cyber Security News reports . The cyberattack targeted the cooling service provider CoolWorld and set the blood freezer units to run at 110° Celsius, rather than their normal operating temperature of -30° Celsius.

Facilities in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté that housed donor blood samples and blood intended for transfusions were targeted overnight on Nov. 1. However, France's Health Ministry says staff noticed the abnormal temperature changes and reacted in time to prevent any loss of service.

The 110° figure is reportedly the hackers' target temperature, not what the freezers actually reached. It doesn't appear that the hack caused major direct damage. "No blood products were lost," the French Blood Establishment told AP News .

France and other European countries have been hit by a number of freezer-related hacking incidents in recent weeks. First, French supermarkets were attacked . Then, retailers in Estonia, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Sweden were targeted in similar attacks that resulted in millions of Euros' worth of spoiled food being thrown away.

For organizations providing critical services, removing remote access to key systems may be an important step in reducing the number of attack vectors available to malicious actors. However, the point of having these systems connected to the internet is to alert people when equipment breaks down, so items like food and blood can be relocated before they spoil. In this blood plasma supply incident, a prompt staff response on-site was enough to thwart the hack.

Frank Groenewegen, a cybersecurity expert at Deloitte in The Hague, spoke to The National and urged retailers across Europe to review their refrigeration units and controllers, identify vulnerabilities, and upgrade security promptly, if possible.