Hackers hit French blood bank

Hackers have targeted France’s national blood bank, raising the temperature of its cold storage rooms.Facilities at Coolworld, a service provider for the country’s national service, were heated to 110C overnight on Sunday after hackers managed to gain access to the temperature settings remotely, French weekly Le Canard enchaîné reported.The rooms need to preserve donor blood samples by staying at -30C.The French Blood Establishment (EFS) said an on-duty technician had detected the unusual rise in temperatures at the facilities on Sunday night.The worker then notified the EFS of the rising temperatures, helping to prevent wider disruption.The Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region was the worst affected, but France’s health ministry said there had been no consequences for patients and no plasma had been destroyed.The EFS had initially said the affected blood samples were part of a health monitoring system connected to blood transfusions.Cyber criminals have been hacking refrigeration systems across Europe, including a British organic food retailer, causing widespread chaos.Langridge Organic, a wholesaler in west London that supplies retailers including Whole Foods Market, Riverford and Able & Cole, said hackers had taken control of six of its 10 cold-room refrigeration systems.The hackers remotely activated defrost cycles and set the maximum temperatures to 66C. On Monday night, cyber-security experts from GCHQ warned British food companies that their refrigeration systems were vulnerable.The National Cyber Security Centre, an arm of GCHQ, said on Tuesday it was aware of “instances where vulnerable technology has been exploited in the UK”.Hundreds of grocery stores in France and around 40 Delhaize supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg were affected as well as shops in Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland.Ikea, the Swedish furniture chain, was among those affected. Hackers gained control of the in-store fridge units via remote access and turned temperatures up to 80C, causing food to spoil.That led to millions of euros worth of food having to be thrown away last month. In Flanders, northern Belgium, a Delhaize branch in Hoeilaart told news website Het Laatste Nieuws it had lost €100,000 (£83,500) worth of produce.CERT-FR, part of France’s National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI), issued a security alert on Oct 12 reporting hacks into multiple refrigerator systems and cautioned companies against leaving system management accessible via the internet.Vincent Strubel, the director general of ANSSI, told a senate hearing on Oct 21 of the risks to refrigerators from cyber attacks.He said there were risks to medical refrigerators in research laboratories, pharmacies and medical facilities.