A cyberattack targeting refrigeration equipment at three sites operated by France’s national blood service attempted to raise storage temperatures to dangerously high levels. However, security systems detected the changes in time, preventing damage to blood products and biological samples, French authorities confirmed.
The French Blood Establishment (Établissement français du sang, EFS) said the incident occurred earlier this week, and involved refrigeration equipment managed by an external service provider. The organisation itself was not directly targeted.
The attack affected monitoring and control systems used in cold-storage facilities at three EFS sites. Hackers altered temperature and defrost settings, raising them to unusually high levels.
The facilities’ monitoring and alarm systems detected the irregularities quickly, allowing staff to intervene. Depending on the circumstances at each location, the affected equipment was either brought back under control or taken out of service. Stored products were also transferred to other facilities as a precaution.
The EFS confirmed that no blood products were lost and no health consequences had been identified. It also said that blood collection and distribution operations continued without interruption.
The affected cold-storage facilities were used to store blood products before their distribution to healthcare facilities, as well as samples intended for the EFS’s biological collections. The stored products included plasma bags intended for transfusions and plasma used in the manufacture of medicinal products.
The incident comes amid a wider series of cyberattacks involving refrigeration systems at supermarkets in several European countries.
Those attacks were intended to disrupt refrigeration systems, potentially causing food losses worth millions of euros.
Although the incidents share similarities in the way refrigeration equipment was targeted, authorities have not established whether the same perpetrators were responsible.
Picture: Magnific, AI edit
