France's national blood service has confirmed it was caught up in a recent wave of cyberattacks targeting refrigeration systems across Europe, with hackers remotely pushing temperatures higher at cold storage sites holding blood products.
The French Blood Establishment, known as EFS, said on Wednesday that it was not the direct target of the attack. Instead, cold storage units run by outside providers were compromised at three of its sites, affecting facilities used to prepare and distribute blood products.
"Specifically, temperature and defrost thresholds were set to excessively high levels," the EFS said in a statement translated from French. The units hold blood products awaiting delivery to hospitals and clinics, along with samples destined for the organization's biobanks and frozen plasma used in transfusions and the manufacture of medicinal products.
The EFS said its surveillance systems detected the intrusion quickly. Depending on the situation, affected equipment was either brought back under control with no impact on the products and samples inside, or disconnected entirely. The organization said no blood products or samples were lost, and samples were swiftly moved to other facilities as a precaution.
The blood service is now working with the French National Cybersecurity Agency, known as ANSSI, and the Ministry of Health, and has stepped up monitoring of its equipment.
"Several regional facilities of the French Blood Establishment (EFS) were affected by a cybersecurity incident that impacted certain cold storage room monitoring and control systems," the organization said in its statement.
The French Health Ministry said the situation is now under control and under close observation, according to Reuters. Officials said the safety of blood supplies was preserved "thanks to the facilities' monitoring and alarm systems, as well as precautionary measures immediately implemented."
The attack on the blood service is part of a broader campaign that has struck hundreds of supermarkets in France and other European countries, including Belgium, Sweden and Finland. In those incidents, intruders remotely hacked store refrigerators and raised temperatures, spoiling food and causing losses potentially running into millions of euros.
The incidents have raised fresh questions about the security of internet-connected industrial refrigeration equipment, which is widely used by retailers and medical facilities across the continent. Authorities have not publicly identified who is behind the attacks.
