After the attacks on writers in Europe: Hackers broke into cooling systems in blood donation repositories
A cyberattack against three blood banks in France was thwarted after hackers remotely changed temperature settings in cooling systems. Authorities emphasize that no blood units were lost and no health damage was caused.
A cyberattack against three storage facilities of the French National Blood Service was thwarted before damage was caused to blood units and medical samples, authorities announced. The attackers managed to remotely change temperature and thawing settings in cooling systems, raising them to abnormal levels. The attack occurred on Monday and targeted the cooling equipment supplier of three plasma storage facilities, where plasma bags for blood transfusions and plasma for drug production were stored. Monitoring and alarm systems quickly detected the changes, allowing teams to transfer or secure the units. Authorities stressed that no blood units were lost and no health consequences were identified. France's national cybersecurity agency and the health ministry have launched an investigation. The incident comes amid a series of similar attacks in Europe on supermarket cooling systems, where temperatures were raised to 55 degrees Celsius. Many of the affected refrigerators ran on software from Danish company Danfoss, and researchers warned in August about vulnerabilities in the system.