Blood Banks: Attackers Try to Spike Temperatures at French Plasma Sites
French authorities say a cyberattack attempted to raise cold-storage temperatures to 230 Fahrenheit, but monitoring systems caught the error before any products were damaged.
By James Brooks ·
French health officials confirmed that hackers attempted to raise the temperature of plasma storage units to 230 Fahrenheit, a move that could have destroyed thousands of bags of blood products. The EFS, France's national blood bank, stated that monitoring systems detected the anomaly on Monday and staff intervened before any samples were compromised.
The incident follows a wave of cyberattacks targeting refrigeration systems across Europe earlier this week. Supermarkets in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands reported that their freezers and fridges warmed up remotely, spoiling tons of food. The French Blood Establishment said the same type of attack hit three of its cold-storage sites.
According to the newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné, which first reported the breach, the attackers tried to reset storage temperatures from a standard minus 30 Celsius to as high as 110 Celsius. The EFS noted that the affected products included plasma for transfusions and plasma used to manufacture medicines. All stored items were either secured or transferred to safe locations.
The EFS stated that no blood products were lost and no health consequences have been identified so far. Blood collection and distribution operations have not been interrupted, ensuring that hospitals continue to receive supplies for patients.
Coolworld, the supplier of the refrigeration equipment, said the vulnerability relates to a component from a third-party supplier that was outside its direct control. The company stated that only a limited number of units were affected and that it is taking appropriate measures to address the issue.
France's national cybersecurity agency and the Health Ministry are currently investigating the incident. This follows a similar mid-October attack that targeted stores across three European countries. Ahold Delhaize, a Dutch supermarket chain, announced Wednesday that it expects the cyberattack to reduce its fourth-quarter sales by 250 million euros. CEO Franz Muller said the company expects operating income to drop by up to 100 million euros as a result of the disruption.
Muller noted that while most of the disruption was contained within two weeks, work continues to fully restore normal operations. The company previously took some systems offline, including websites and apps for its brands in Europe and the United States, after blaming malicious actions by others.
