French blood service is targeted in wave of refrigeration cyberattacks across Europe

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A cyberattack on a refrigeration monitoring supplier affected cold-room controls at three French blood-service sites, raising temperature and defrost settings to unusually high levels. France’s national blood service said blood stocks were not damaged, while similar refrigeration attacks across more than 10 European countries spoiled supermarket food; investigators have not established whether the incidents are linked.

France’s national blood service said one of its refrigeration monitoring and control suppliers was hacked on Monday, raising temperature and defrost thresholds in cold rooms at three preparation or distribution sites to “very high levels.”The attack came as more than 10 European countries, including France and the UK, were hit by cyberattacks1 at supermarket chains that also remotely manipulated refrigeration thermostats, turning them up to 50°C (122°F) or forcing defrost modes and spoiling large amounts of fresh food. Investigators have yet to establish whether the attacks were linked.Unlike the supermarkets, which had to jettison massive quantities of overheated fresh and frozen food, the blood stocks came out unscathed, the blood service Établissement français du sang (EFS) said.An EFS spokesperson told The BMJ that the cold rooms normally operated at -30°C but would not confirm a report in the French newspaper Le Canard enchaîné that hackers had reprogrammed the equipment to...