In less than a month, attackers heated up supermarket freezers in France and seven other European countries and tampered with the temperature of blood bank cold rooms. In the United States, the Pentagon is investigating freezer failures at military bases. The way in is almost always the same: a refrigeration supervisory system left open to the internet.
supermarkets hit in France, according to the French government
in Europe with stores hit between October and November
inside freezers that should be below freezing
programmed into plasma freezers that run at −30 °C
What the press reported
The facts in the order they happened, with the source for each, and where NEO was interviewed.
In at least six supermarkets on U.S. military bases, freezers failed. At Fort Huachuca, Arizona, a freezer went into defrost mode overnight and the food had to be thrown away.
Source: Olhar Digital, citing Reuters
Attackers took control of the refrigeration at stores of chains such as Carrefour, Monoprix, Intermarché and Coopérative U. Temperatures reached 50 °C inside the equipment, entire inventories were thrown away and stores closed for cleaning. Losses add up to tens of millions of euros. On the same day, CERT-FR, France's official cybersecurity agency, issued an alert about Danfoss supervisory systems.
Sources: Associated Press · IT Forum · Crypto ID
CERT-FR expanded the alert to supervisory systems from Copeland and Dixell XWEB, in addition to the Danfoss AK-SM and AK-SC families. In Brazil, NEO told Mobile Time it estimated losses of up to R$ 3.8 billion if a similar attack hit the supermarkets in the state of São Paulo.
Sources: Olhar Digital · Mobile Time
Live on News Noite, Rafael Cocchiaro, NEO's head of technology, estimated losses of R$ 1.5 to 3 billion for Brazilian food retail from a single night of an attack like the one in France. His recommendation, in one sentence: take the supervisory system off the open internet.
Reuters reported that U.S. Cyber Command and the Army Criminal Investigation Division are investigating the August failures, in contact with French authorities. There is no proof of a breach yet, and the investigation remains open.
Sources: Olhar Digital · Antena 1
The attackers got in through the maintenance system of a third-party supplier of the French Blood Establishment (EFS) and changed the freezers' temperature from −30 °C to 110 °C. Staff noticed the abnormal temperatures in time and, according to the French Ministry of Health, there were no serious operational consequences.
Sources: Olhar Digital · O Tempo
Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Estonia had freezers warming up overnight: about 40 Delhaize stores, 15 Carrefour in Belgium and 13 SuperValu in Ireland, among others. Danfoss confirmed that the cases involve its products, many of them no longer receiving security updates or still using the factory password.
Sources: Olhar Digital · Al Jazeera · Euronews
In every case, the path was the same: a supervisory system reachable from the internet, equipment without updates or with a weak password, and a common function, such as defrost, turned against the store.In Brazil, no breach has been confirmed so far. The same equipment is here.
What these cases teach us
Most of the protection does not require replacing equipment. It requires knowing what you have, closing the right door and seeing the temperature rise before the inventory is lost.
Supervisory system off the public internet, accessed only through a VPN or from authorized addresses, without losing readings and alarms.
Model and firmware version of each supervisory system. Some of the affected controllers have not received updates since 2021.
At the French blood bank, the loss was avoided because staff saw the abnormal temperature in time. Alarms that reach whoever responds, 24 hours a day.
Configuration backup stored outside the store, restore already tested and a designated person in charge of the first minutes.
20 pages, free. What to review first, how to tell whether your Danfoss, Copeland or Dixell supervisory system is on the list and how to get back up and running if the worst happens.
NEO in the press on the case
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