Supermarket freezers across Europe hit by second suspected cyber-attack

fergie

Hackers remotely override settings on thousands of freezers, fridges and chiller cabinets, pushing them from as low as -27C to well over 50C. Intermarché, Coopérative U, Carrefour, Leclerc and Monoprix chains among those affected.

noja

Will the insurance pay out on this? It would be negligent to have this exposed to the internet - was it?

pluc

Ireland too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50335252

ocd

I've fantasized a long time about a clearer separation of technology from life, since it's been depicted in some ways I appreciated in fiction. But at this point, I'd just take a set of laws around what types of items should ever have any sort of networking.

wronglebowski

It truly feels like Europe is just collectively shrugging at their lack of preparedness and aggression they face. What’s it going to take for them to take their own security seriously?

Jmstdy95

that's insane, they just got hit recently right?

kzrdude

It happened in France on 12 October: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crq5nzxv9q4yo

ilkkao

This first happened in France over three weeks ago. It's unforgivable that many chains have failed to update their software in time. Or to take the freezers offline if an update isn't available. I now read some interviews with local chains in Sweden and Finland, and they were still just investigating what to do at this point.

pluc

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50335602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50335252

HexnMarcusWolfe

... Who the fuck is putting this shit on a network that's not closed circuit?

mrweasel

There was an interview with an angry store manager, he's mad at the attackers, but I didn't hear the media ask him why they didn't improve security after the French attacks. Only now do they appear to want to start a review of their monitoring system. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/skane/icas-kylar-och-frysa...

andy_ppp

Maybe we should stop connecting things to the Internet that don't need to be?

hackingonempty

Back in 1995 this was so improbable it was one of the purported negative effects of the "Good Times" virus which was a parody of the virus warning e-mails that were being forwarded around at the time. Computers still can't give you Dutch elm disease, fortunately. > It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream goes melty. https://people.cs.rutgers.edu/~watrous/goodtimes-spoof.html

thatsabadlook

Can't tell if it will be some asshole hacker group, Russia, the us, or what. But for the love of God please stop connecting everything to the Internet and also ai...

marttt

Similar thing in Estonia: https://news.err.ee/1610183296/hackers-raised-freezer-temper...

amelius

This is exactly the kind of thing we've all been warning about ... (... in hacker forums)

tensegrist

i know some of us are thinking "if you consistently fail to ensure your ability to make high-severity security patches reach critical internet-exposed systems on time you lose your ability to operate the business and probably get jail time" but what about the deranged (and very prediction market–brained) version of this idea: the government develops ransomware, in a manner functionally similar to towing cars or confiscating illegal items, and uses it against companies in proportion to their revenue and obviously puts the money towards improving the ransomware "the r in rsi stands for…" i'm not sure it's something i want to see, but i don't know if it's impossible for it to actually come to pass or merely unlikely (of course, cross -government versions of this are much more likely to come about but not as ransomware)

puszczyk

I wonder if the companies affected this time missed the news about the French attack a few weeks back?

SecretDreams

Two things: 1) I hope they learn some hard lessons about security and what should be exposed to the internet vs LAN. 2) These are some evil ass people doing this shit.

liveoneggs

Why isn't the brand of cooler or cooler-controller being named? Was it a password break or an open admin console or SNMP or what?