Blood Bank Hit by Hack Raising Temperatures to 110°C... "Not for Money" Why?

[Anchor]

Amid a series of refrigerator hacking incidents across Europe, even a blood storage facility has been attacked in France. Experts warn that such politically motivated cyberattacks, rather than those driven by financial motives, are expected to surge in the future.

Reporting from Paris, this is Kwon Yeongin.

[Reporter]

Following food supply chains, blood storage facilities have now become targets of hacking.

The French Blood Establishment announced on November 2, local time, that when supermarket refrigeration systems were hit by cyberattacks across parts of Europe, the refrigeration facilities storing blood were subjected to the same attack.

In some facilities, temperatures soared from minus 30 degrees Celsius (-22°F) up to 110 degrees Celsius (230°F).

The blood establishment stated that while the refrigeration facilities of three specific companies storing plasma for transfusions were hacked, the blood products were unharmed as they were quickly transferred to other refrigerators.

The problem lies in the vulnerable security environment exposed to hacking.

Experts diagnose that outsiders can easily access facility systems connected to the internet, and a significant number of facilities remain vulnerable to hacking because they have not even changed their initial passwords.

In fact, when attempting to log in using the default passwords set by the manufacturer, the control screens of some cooling systems appeared directly on the monitor.

[Laurence Cinget / Security Expert: I tried logging in. The ID was "admin" and the password was "12345". And the screen controlling the cooling system appeared. Then, if I press a single button, the heating function turns on.]

According to a European Union report, out of some 8,200 cyberattacks that occurred last year, 57% were politically motivated attacks targeting public facilities and others.

In particular, pro-Russian groups accounted for nearly half of these attacks, showing a sharp upward trend since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

[Richard Horne / Head of the UK National Cyber Security Centre: Over the coming months, we are likely to face a surge in cyber incidents the likes of which we have not experienced in the past.]

As even essential daily infrastructure becomes targets of cyberattacks, the European Union has begun discussing joint response measures.

(Video Reporter: Kim Si-nae, Video Editor: Jeong Yong-hwa)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.