European fridges are so hot right now. Right on the heels of repeated cyberattacks on supermarket freezers, a fresh wave of attacks has hit units used by France's blood service (EFS). Thankfully, no biomaterials were lost, as the attack triggered the EFS' alerts, prompting staff to move the affected goods to proper storage.
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The French Health Ministry said that the situation is being closely monitored and that no assets were lost. The attack seemed focused on refrigeration units at three sites, with Burgundy-Franche-Comté reportedly among them. The EFS' communiqué says the intrusion was on a service provider, which some outlets are reporting as Coolworld.
Coolworld has posted a notice stating that the incident was due to "remote monitoring software" used in its systems, pinning the cause on "a component from a third-party supplier." There are no technical details available yet, so it's not yet clear if the hackers found internet-reachable equipment, as they did with the supermarket attacks.
It's possible that Coolworld keeps the controllers inside its own network and that malfeasants had to first gain entry to said network. However, it's worth noting that it was the EFS' monitoring and alarm system that noticed something was up — not the vendor's.
We don't know which brand of refrigerator controllers Coolworld uses, but the ongoing attacks seem to be happening on a per-vendor basis.
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