Abstract:
The refrigeration equipment supplier of the French blood agency EFS was hit by a cyberattack. The attack affected EFS's plasma cold storages in multiple locations in France. The attacker raised the target temperature of some cold storages from minus 30°C to 110°C. The monitoring and alarm system detected the abnormality in time, and then the staff urgently transferred the plasma or properly protected the stored plasma.
Supermarket refrigeration equipment in France and other European countries was also attacked earlier. The attacker remotely turned on the defrost function of the refrigeration equipment, causing the temperature to rise from minus 18°C to 50°C. Many products that needed to be frozen melted and deteriorated, and had to be discarded.
The attack occurred from the night of November 1st to November 2nd, local time, and affected CoolWorld, a supplier of refrigeration equipment for EFS. The attacker used vulnerabilities to remotely modify the temperature and defrost thresholds in the cold storage monitoring and control system.
Originally, the standing temperature of these cold storages was minus 30°C, but hackers changed it to 110°C. The modified EFS's monitoring and alarm system quickly detected the abnormality, and the staff subsequently took emergency measures to transfer the plasma to prevent it from being destroyed due to too high temperatures.
These cold storages mainly store plasma used for blood transfusions, plasma used for separation, processing and manufacturing of drugs. The agency is also responsible for the collection, preparation and distribution of blood within France. EFS issued a statement afterwards saying that no health effects were detected and there was no loss of blood products.
Prior to this incident, supermarket refrigeration equipment in France and other European countries had been subject to cyberattacks one after another. Attackers remotely interfered with refrigerators and freezers, causing food in some supermarket stores to spoil, requiring the affected products to be discarded.
The French cybersecurity agency advises operators to connect refrigeration equipment through a secure encrypted VPN or protected network, install firmware updates and change passwords. But I didn't expect that even medical blood banks were attacked this time, and the nature was very bad.
At present, the French cybersecurity agency, the French police and the French health department have launched an investigation into the matter. However, as of the publication of this article, no hacker has announced that he is responsible for the relevant incident, and the purpose of the hacker's attack is not known.
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