Fridge hack costing millions and sparking fires stemmed from poor security
Incident hitting 700 supermarkets exploited outdated devices exposed to the Internet.
Incident hitting 700 supermarkets exploited outdated devices exposed to the Internet.
The short version
- Earlier this week, a mass hack of refrigeration systems at an estimated 700 supermarkets throughout France caused them to suddenly malfunction, causing spoilage of untold tons of perishables and, in some cases, fires.
- As is now the norm, basic cybersecurity would have prevented it.
- A raft of critical vulnerabilities fixed in the past few months in Copeland/Dixel controllers also give similar remote access.
What happened
Besides running controllers with outdated firmware, the affected stores likely also failed to put the devices behind a VPN and create a restricted list of IP addresses allowed to log in. These protections are standard but often not followed.
Why it matters
In this case, that failure enabled a mass hack that likely cost tens or hundreds of millions of euros.
Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Ars Technica via the links above and below.