Key takeaways:
- EFS said monitoring systems detected altered settings at three plasma-storage sites before any blood products or samples were damaged.
- Ahold Delhaize said it expected the cyberattack to reduce fourth-quarter sales by up to $281 million and operating income by more than $112 million.
- No formal attribution has been made for the freezer hacks, despite claims and competing theories about who was responsible.
Hackers tried to raise temperatures at three French plasma-storage sites, but monitoring systems detected the changes before any blood products or samples were damaged, the French Blood Establishment said. The attack follows cyberattacks on supermarket refrigeration systems that spoiled tons of food in Europe.
The French Blood Establishment, known as EFS, said in a statement released late Tuesday that temperature and defrosting thresholds at the three sites had been raised to “extremely high levels” on Monday. Staff intervened, transferring or securing bags of plasma intended for transfusions and plasma used to make medicines.
“No health consequences have been identified, and no blood products were lost,” EFS said. Blood collection and distribution continued without interruption, it added.
The French weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, which first reported the attack, said hackers tried to change temperatures normally set at minus 22 Fahrenheit (minus 30 Celsius) to as high as 230 F (110 C), according to CBS News. The attack affected refrigeration equipment supplied by Coolworld. The company said the reported vulnerability involved a third-party component outside its direct control. It said only a limited number of units were affected and that it was taking “appropriate measures.”
France’s national cybersecurity agency and Health Ministry are investigating, CBS News reported. The ministry gave no indication of who might be behind the attack.
The blood-storage incident followed attacks in mid-October on fridges and freezers at hundreds of supermarkets and independent stores in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Remotely altered temperatures left tons of food spoiled, CBS News reported. The BBC reported that a later wave of freezer attacks reached several European countries.
Dutch supermarket chain Ahold Delhaize said Wednesday that it expected the cyberattack to reduce its fourth-quarter sales by as much as $281 million (250 million euros) and operating income by more than $112 million (about 100 million euros), according to CBS News. The company had previously blamed “malicious actions by others” and proactively taken some systems offline, including websites and apps for its brands in Europe and the United States.
“While most of the disruption was contained within two weeks, work continues to fully restore our normal operations,” CEO Franz Muller said in a statement released with the company’s quarterly earnings. “As we all recognize, cyber threats are an increasingly harsh reality of doing business today.”
No formal attribution has been made for the freezer hacks. The BBC reported that Russian groups NoName057(16) and Z-Pentest Alliance claimed to have hacked refrigeration-equipment maker Danfoss, prompting speculation about their role. Analysts questioned whether that claim connected them to the supermarket attacks.
Researchers at three cybersecurity firms have used digital decoys, or “honeypots,” to study attempts to access freezer software, the BBC reported. Ryan Dewhurst of Spanish firm Previdian said simultaneous attacks suggested planning and coordination. Scotland-based Lupovis said its decoys were probed in Europe but not in places including Africa, South America or Ukraine.
French cybersecurity firm Sekoia said evidence could point to Russian or Iranian-linked actors, but told the BBC it had “no technical evidence indicating the involvement of Russian-speaking groups.” It also said different groups or copycats could have carried out the waves of attacks.
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