From supermarkets to the cold storage facilities that store donor blood: the scope of cyber attacks that have hit various European countries is expanding. In France, hackers tampered with the temperature of the facilities storing blood and plasma bags at three regional sites, increasing the temperature from -30 to 110 degrees Celsius . No health repercussions, the Paris Ministry of Health assures.

The alarm is also being raised in Italy, where the National Blood Center has urged transfusion facilities "to maintain the utmost vigilance, checking temperatures and adapting safety measures to prevent emerging risks." Meanwhile, the National Cybersecurity Agency has issued a new, urgent recommendation "to all public and private entities using technologies for maintaining the cold chain, as well as remote control and industrial supervision systems, to urgently adopt the verification and mitigation measures already recommended."

The claim

Meanwhile, a claim of responsibility for the recent campaign of attacks has appeared on the dark web. It was signed by the pro-Russian groups Noname057(16) and Z-Pentest, who threaten to also hit "aqueducts, power plants, industrial plants and food storage sites". But among investigators, scepticism prevails about the reliability of the claim of responsibility, which contains elements found in open sources. Even though Noname and Z-Pentest are among the most active crews in pro-Kremlin propaganda and the Z-Pentest Alliance - linked to the GRU, Moscow's military intelligence - has in the past hit infrastructures in various Western countries.

The attack in France

Last Monday, a cyberattack affected Coolworld, a refrigeration services provider for the French National Blood Institute (EFS). The latter announced that "the safety of stocks has been maintained thanks to the facilities' monitoring and alarm systems, as well as the precautionary measures implemented immediately," adding that "monitoring of the operation and temperatures of all our equipment has been strengthened."

In Italy

Similar measures have been implemented in Italy, where the healthcare sector is one of the most targeted by cybercriminals. The cold chain, explained Luciana Teofili, director of the National Blood Center, "has always been a particularly closely monitored aspect." However, the events in France "require heightened vigilance on the 'cold spaces' of the blood system." The National Cybersecurity Agency is also taking action, following the alerts of recent days. Today, director Andrea Quacivi was interviewed by COPASIR, which had interviewed AISI Director Bruno Valensise on Tuesday. The point is that—beyond the difficulty of attributing attacks—hostile cyber campaigns are increasingly widespread and originate from various actors, including "state actors" such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. These campaigns aim to convey the idea of an unprepared and vulnerable West. And often these aren't particularly sophisticated operations, but intrusions that exploit the gross negligence of those who should be adequately protecting their systems. Attackers thus gain significant media attention with little effort. Hence the new "urgent warning" issued this evening by the Agency: compromising cold chain equipment can "result in the interruption of refrigeration processes, the deterioration of stored products and materials, and the unavailability of services, with possible repercussions on operational continuity and people's health."

(Unioneonline)

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