Hackers target French blood banks, crank freezers to 230 degrees

As cold storage units across Europe have been the target of cyberattacks, hackers were able to get into units storing blood products in France, attempting to crank the temperature to boiling levels.

France’s health ministry said on Wednesday that the recent attack targeted “cold storage room monitoring and control systems” at three regional blood banks, during which hackers attempted to crank the temperature from -22 degrees up to 230 Fahrenheit.

While thousands of dollars in meat and dairy have spoiled in attacks on internet-connected supermarket cold storage units, the quick actions of staffers were able to save the stock, per the New York Post.

French Blood Establishment (EFS) spokesperson Charley Dubois said, “We have staff round the clock since blood can be needed at any time. They were warned about the problems by alerts and moved the blood to other refrigerators that were not connected.”

The French Blood Establishment said that the attack targeted units storing bags of plasma intended for transfusions or medicine manufacturing. It said, “no blood products or samples were compromised.”

The equipment at the blood banks was under control on Wednesday, with the health ministry saying that the refrigerators’ remote access was disabled.

The attack on French blood banks came as cold storage units in stores across Europe were hit in a large-scale cyberattack, including major stores in Belgium, Estonia, Sweden, and Luxembourg. Freezers were hacked, with attackers bringing the units to 122 degrees, resulting in spoiled groceries.