Technology and Scienceupdated 37m ago2 min read
Archive photo · 15 January 2025US Warns Of Ongoing Cyber Threat Targeting Cooling Systems, FBI And CISA Say
“represent a deliberate attempt to disrupt food security”
“ongoing cyber threat”
Photo: MatthewHoobin, CC0 · Cropped for layout
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
U.S. agencies warn of an ongoing cyber threat targeting cooling and industrial refrigeration systems. Attacks disrupted supermarket freezers, military bases, and a blood bank across multiple countries.
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Cooling systems become targets
The United States warned of an "ongoing electronic threat" targeting cooling systems, and the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said every organization relying on chilled storage should assume it could be a potential target for cyber intrusions. The U.S. government statement said unidentified malicious actors were exploiting vulnerabilities in internet-connected temperature and cooling control devices, especially in grocery stores and refrigerated storage facilities. The warning tied successful exploitation to physical impacts, including fire hazards, loss of inventory, and changes to the service life of the system.
Chris Boothe, Acting Deputy Director of Cybersecurity at CISA, said, "every organization relying on cooling and monitoring systems should assume it is a potential target." The warning followed multiple waves of cyberattacks targeting refrigerators and freezers, including Pentagon investigators dealing with mysterious failures in cooling units at food stores on American military bases in August, suspected to be a cyberattack.
Government steps and disputed details
The U.S. government urged affected industries to disconnect cooling control devices from the public Internet, isolate these devices from corporate networks, and apply software updates immediately to close security gaps. The joint warning said hackers are targeting and compromising internet-connected refrigeration and cold chain monitoring systems in grocery stores and cold storage facilities, and it described the hacks as hitting critical infrastructure in the food, agriculture, transportation, and medicine-shipping industries. CISA, the FBI, and the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Transportation urged operators to remove remote control systems from the internet, change and strengthen passwords, apply patches where possible, and retire equipment that is no longer supported by the vendor.
Chris Butera, CISA’s acting cybersecurity chief, said, "Every organization that depends on refrigeration and monitoring systems should assume it could be a target." The Express Tribune framed the same U.S. warning as an "ongoing cyber threat" and added that FBI Cyber Branch Operations Director Brett Leatherman said the government was "seeing these systems targeted across critical infrastructure sectors globally".
Food security, outages, and risk
EU officials warned that suspected cyberattacks on refrigeration systems across Europe represent a deliberate attempt to disrupt food security, as hackers manipulate temperature controls causing widespread food spoilage. Christophe Hansen said food security was not currently at risk, and he urged coordinated efforts to strengthen supply-chain resilience across member states. In Athens’ Kifisia district, Giorgos Boumpas said hackers accessed a butcher shop’s refrigeration control system and set temperatures to 150 degrees Celsius (302 degrees Fahrenheit), destroying inventory.
The same report said several ICA and Coop stores in Sweden reported freezers reaching 55 degrees Celsius (131 degrees Fahrenheit), with ICA stating affected connections operated outside its central network. The report also described a broader pattern in which many affected systems relied on default passwords and operated outside secure corporate networks, leaving them vulnerable to remote manipulation by malicious actors.