Hackers hit French national blood bank

(telegraph.co.uk)

51 points | by blaze33 an hour ago ago

38 comments

  • tedggh a minute ago ago

    This is easily fixed with data diodes. I can see future industrial appliances and other critical IoT devices with embedded units. You use the read/write port for initial configuration then the diode for permanent monitoring making physical impossible to send data to the equipment.

  • kristjank 43 minutes ago ago

    Not only freezers, but a lot of other appliances have become IoT-integrated to simplify inspection procedures. Instead of the health department looking at each freezer/smoke detector/gas detector/emergency floodlight individually, you can just present them with a report from your building's safety system. Older systems were mostly some industrial bus and are off-grid by default, but new ones are usually smarter, and as a result, IP-connected.

    • goda90 15 minutes ago ago

      What remote control mechanisms do detectors needs? Can't they just be broadcast only devices?

  • RobotToaster an hour ago ago

    Fridges shouldn't be on the internet, doubly so when it's one storing vital medical supplies.

    • account42 25 minutes ago ago

      Yes, especially after this has now been happening again and again. First case can be excused as usual bad practices and lazyness. But it should have been a wake up call causing anyone else operating commercial freezers (or even other equipment) to review if/how they are connected to the Internet. Anyone getting hit now is maliciously incompetent.

    • jasona123 35 minutes ago ago

      Or if you really really want to, make sure it’s just a read/view only architecture?

      • raverbashing 10 minutes ago ago

        Yes

        The heat/cold switch should be a physical switch.

  • Tryvrsakjo10 an hour ago ago

    The advent of AI and its ability to find vulnerabilities so quickly is getting out of hand. Yesterday it was supermarket fridges now its fridges that store blood, they should never have been connected to the internet in the first place especially in these times with AI, but all of Europe needs to invest more into their cyber security systems they are anachronistic at this point.

    • holsta an hour ago ago

      > The advent of AI and its ability to find vulnerabilities so quickly

      No AI needed. The supermarket controllers had software with guessable passwords and outdated nginx, both of which had patches out for a year.

      Some hardware had reached end-of-live, and were never replaced.

      All were connected directly on the internet instead of secure APNs or VPNs.

      This is long-standing, basic management failure, and the fines should reflect that.

      • Tryvrsakjo10 41 minutes ago ago

        So, the people in charge are either inept or just sleeping on the job especially for things that are so important to people's lives. cause it seems like everyday something else is getting hacked or exploited because of its vulnerabilities.

  • lordnacho 14 minutes ago ago

    Are these IoT devices actually directly on the internet, in the sense of exposing a port on a public IP address (perhaps behind NAT)?

    Because you'd think it would work to just have them on a VPN, and then they aren't responsive to any non-authenticated internet traffic?

  • mainecoder an hour ago ago

    can someone please explain how they can heat the blood I understand they can stop the freezing but you cannot set the temperature of a refrigerator to a point where it literally heats the stuff inside since a refrigerator do not have the mean to warm objects inside it can only remove the heat.

    • rescbr an hour ago ago

      It's the defrost cycle.

      Modern "frost-free" freezers have resistive heaters inside them.

    • Ekaros 42 minutes ago ago

      Basically understand that fridges and freezers work by making a surface, heat exchanger or some type of pipe cold. Being cold leads to moisture in ambient air condensing on that. And being usually below freezing to icing on it. Ice is not very good heat conductor. So you want occasionally get rid of it. Easiest way to achieve this is heating it. Simple resistive heaters are cheap and maluable for this.

      Now if you can control these heaters you can pump up the temperature to quite high. And I imagine with certain uses cases actually emptying the whole thing heating it up to melt ice and then bringing temp back down is not that unreasonable process. Also allows keeping the temperature in very close range. For home appliances bit more temperature variation is acceptable.

      • customguy 11 minutes ago ago

        Maybe it could be combined with thermostats? E.g. one for "if it ever gets hotter than N degrees, disconnect all heating elements and trigger some alarm", another one for "if it's warmer than X for longer than Y minutes, do the same". That could also be to the network, too, it just would never read from it, or from anything electronically. Just bimetals closing or opening circuits, basically. How expensive would that even be? (If you planned for it from day 1 of the design I mean, not retrofitting things)

    • kristjank an hour ago ago

      Seems like it's more of a walk in freezer situation and it can be controlled in either direction.

  • arttaboi 10 minutes ago ago

    This is out there!

  • marsknight 40 minutes ago ago

    Le Canard Enchaîné is a satirical paper!

    • zeumo 9 minutes ago ago

      Yes, but not in the same way The Onion (or its French counter part Le Gorafi) are satirical.

      Le Canard enchainé makes fun of people and institutions, but never makes stuff up, and are arguably more rigorous than most mainstream media outlet. They have a long history of exposing real scandals, albeit with a tongue-in-cheek manner.

    • pyrale 17 minutes ago ago

      Nope. It's a serious newspaper reporting on serious news. Usually with a vitriolic tone and wordplay, but it's absolutely not a satirical newspaper like the onion (the french equivalent would be le gorafi).

      Same news other serious outlet:

      [1]: https://www.franceinfo.fr/internet/securite-sur-internet/cyb...

    • croisillon 33 minutes ago ago

      yes but The Telegraph too runs invented stories

      • vixen99 21 minutes ago ago

        Maybe they do but if you make allegations like this why not support them with evidence? That would put to rest any possible suggestion by folk who see ulterior motives in everything, that maybe you object to the Telegraph in general. No reason to suppose you do but that's how it is.

  • elmer2 an hour ago ago

    We need to have a French Revolution for hackers that do this. One clobbering, and they will think twice.

  • amelius 38 minutes ago ago

    I see a new market in little VPN devices.

    • Ekaros 35 minutes ago ago

      There is plenty of options already on the market. From specifically for remote use to simple features on routers.

      Still, spending any money on basic security seems to be way too much these days.

  • smallnix an hour ago ago

    I don't understand the 110. The blood was.. boiling??

  • ReptileMan 37 minutes ago ago

    They had almost 3 weeks of warning since those attacks started. No excuses if they are not secured by now.

  • fithisux an hour ago ago

    It is either malicious incompetence or a red flag. No other explanation for me is satisfactory.

  • retinaros an hour ago ago

    we are a few attacks like this from a country interpreting it as a declaration of war. I have no doubts a developed country counter-intelligence cell can find which country is responsible for such a large scale attack. I wish they target countries like China instead of spineless france.

    • m000 6 minutes ago ago

      Spineless or beholden? That is the question.

    • BSDobelix an hour ago ago

      >I wish they target countries like China instead of spineless france.

      Because Chinese Life is less worth than "spineless" French? What is that disgusting worldview of yours? You know what a blood-bank is, right?

      • harvey9 an hour ago ago

        I read it as meaning China is more likely to track down and prosecute the attackers. I use the term prosecute loosely.

      • dumbmrblah 39 minutes ago ago

        They mean that China will respond in kind, rather than France, who may just wring their hands.

  • cricketfanatic 42 minutes ago ago

    This is not looking good especially with so much red tape in Europe don’t know how they will deal with this…

    • pyrale 21 minutes ago ago

      The article states there was no impact on stored products, because the attack was detected early.

      I'm not sure why you're talking about red tape, is that really related to the article?

      • enaaem 13 minutes ago ago

        Standard reaction for anything Euro related.

        • customguy 8 minutes ago ago

          I'd say it's half of one, since it doesn't mention nuclear power.