Supermarket chains in Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg have said the temperatures of their refrigerators and freezers in dozens of stores rose overnight, prompting fears of a cyber-attack similar to one that caused millions of euros of food losses in France.
Also report about Ireland and Estonia supermarkets: link
This is what I thought initially, but it seems simply the case of default username/password (Supervisor/12345) and internet connected devices. I'm not kidding with that password. It looks like scanning for these devices, I bet Shodan can easily list them, then trying default creds. I was reading Danfoss is the maker. So in essence nothing new, much like internet connected printers being abused by script kiddies.
I had never considered that supermarkets would be using app-controlled freezers and thermostats. Doesn't seem worth the extra cost to a famously slim-margin business, but clearly it made sense at the time.
For industrial fridges and freezers it makes sense to have these features. You need temperature logging to verify the cold chain and (I'm guessing) it's useful to have the ability to remotely control the temperature so that say, before a delivery you can set it to a lower temperature to compensate for any cooling lost while moving the delivered merchandise in.
The mistake here is just typical lax security. These devices shouldn't be exposed to the public internet and if they already aren't, then it just means they had weak network security that the hackers were able to get through to reach the devices.
I remember watching gameplay footage of Watch Dogs, people wirelessly hacking traffic lights and electronic doors, and thinking how stupid it was that everything electronic in this world would be network accessible. Now people's smart beds are being bricked and half of Europe's freezers were taken out by a Russian cyber op. The only thing I don't think is network accessible yet are those fecking traffic lights.
Traffic lights are definitely networked in most cities. Whether said network is accessible easily from the internet is another story.
Traffic control is a fairly complicated field, and you'll have a range from dumb fixed-cycle lights in rural or low traffic areas (previously electromechanical, now probably an embedded computer) to centrally coordinated systems that use sensors to collect traffic flow information and optimize cycles. Lights are coordinated to create "green waves" to minimize congestion, and cycle times are dynamically adjusted based on the presence of vehicles or time of day or alternate routes being closed.
[OP] smoontjes | 7 hours ago
Also report about Ireland and Estonia supermarkets: link
Seems like hybrid warfare of some kind?
MimicSquid | 5 hours ago
Given that the first known target was US Army commissaries? Absolutely.
caliper | 3 hours ago
This is what I thought initially, but it seems simply the case of default username/password (Supervisor/12345) and internet connected devices. I'm not kidding with that password. It looks like scanning for these devices, I bet Shodan can easily list them, then trying default creds. I was reading Danfoss is the maker. So in essence nothing new, much like internet connected printers being abused by script kiddies.
Adys | 3 hours ago
Don’t be fooled. Script kiddies aren’t behind this.
Seriously; I’m extremely involved in countering Russian attacks and regardless of how shit security is, it’s still Russia behind it.
We can blame poor security all we want, it still takes a criminal to break in, even if the key was simple.
Fiachra | 7 hours ago
I had never considered that supermarkets would be using app-controlled freezers and thermostats. Doesn't seem worth the extra cost to a famously slim-margin business, but clearly it made sense at the time.
JCAPER | 7 hours ago
In a way, I get it. It’s a lot of fridges, so having a centralized place to control them makes sense.
On the other hand, I wonder if they were exposed to the internet? Maybe the solution could be making sure that they stay within the LAN.
Or maybe it’s just better to make them dumb devices again. Some devices are simply too important and shouldn’t have extra points of failure
puhtahtoe | 4 hours ago
For industrial fridges and freezers it makes sense to have these features. You need temperature logging to verify the cold chain and (I'm guessing) it's useful to have the ability to remotely control the temperature so that say, before a delivery you can set it to a lower temperature to compensate for any cooling lost while moving the delivered merchandise in.
The mistake here is just typical lax security. These devices shouldn't be exposed to the public internet and if they already aren't, then it just means they had weak network security that the hackers were able to get through to reach the devices.
snake_case | 5 hours ago
It’s probably to save on labor.
I’m sure before it was centralized some human had to go through and make sure each freezer was working
Fiachra | 2 hours ago
I remember watching gameplay footage of Watch Dogs, people wirelessly hacking traffic lights and electronic doors, and thinking how stupid it was that everything electronic in this world would be network accessible. Now people's smart beds are being bricked and half of Europe's freezers were taken out by a Russian cyber op. The only thing I don't think is network accessible yet are those fecking traffic lights.
redwall_hp | an hour ago
Traffic lights are definitely networked in most cities. Whether said network is accessible easily from the internet is another story.
Traffic control is a fairly complicated field, and you'll have a range from dumb fixed-cycle lights in rural or low traffic areas (previously electromechanical, now probably an embedded computer) to centrally coordinated systems that use sensors to collect traffic flow information and optimize cycles. Lights are coordinated to create "green waves" to minimize congestion, and cycle times are dynamically adjusted based on the presence of vehicles or time of day or alternate routes being closed.
updawg | 3 hours ago
Yes, if this is like the last attack(s), they were exposed with weak passwords.
riQQ | 2 hours ago
Previous attack on refrigerators
https://tildes.net/~tech/1wfr/fridges_in_french_supermarkets_hit_by_cyber_attack
Trooper | an hour ago
We are in for some crazy times ahead.