Hackers have come for blood.
France’s national civilian blood service, the EFS, said its refrigerators were hit by a cyberattack on Monday that raised temperatures to “very high levels.”
The attack hit three sites, affecting equipment storing blood samples and plasma used in transfusions, the EFS said in a press release. Hospitals often use frozen plasma for patients who are hemorrhaging or otherwise losing a lot of blood.
Hackers targeted a refrigeration equipment supplier, not the EFS itself, the release said. The EFS’ monitoring and alarm systems identified the rising temperatures, and people responded to the attack before any samples or products were compromised or destroyed. Products at the facilities were “preventively transferred to other facilities,” the EFS said.
The attackers aimed to raise temperatures from -22°F to 230°F, according to the French publication Le Canard enchaîné. The EFS did not comment on the temperatures reached, and said it is working with France’s cybersecurity agency and the Ministry of Health to investigate the attack.
A spokesperson for the EFS told Business Insider that the organization has “strengthened” temperature monitoring of all refrigeration equipment, and that blood collection and distribution are “fully ensured.”
Europe’s refrigerators feel the heat
The attack on blood plasma fridges is the latest in a wave of incidents involving internet-connected fridges and freezers.
From Sunday into Monday, hackers targeted refrigeration systems at dozens of European supermarkets. Fridge and freezer temperatures rose at stores in countries including Sweden, Belgium, and Estonia, with one Swedish retailer saying temperatures were set to 122°F in a Facebook post. Some stores were forced to throw away food.
Last month, another cyberattack hit hundreds of French grocery stores, causing retailers to throw away thousands of dollars worth of food. The director of a store in Normandy told Business Insider that his freezers were set to 122º F and that he lost $112,000 worth of food.
It is not clear who is behind the refrigeration attacks or whether any of them are connected.
Commercial refrigeration systems are connected to the internet so that engineers can monitor them remotely for maintenance. The defrost settings allow them to clear ice buildup, but have been overridden by hackers to dangerously high levels. Many of the targeted systems have out-of-date software.
The string of incidents comes amid a broader wave of cyber anxiety in recent weeks, including over a $6.3 billion crypto heist and newfound vulnerabilities in a programming language that supports up to 70% of websites.
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