In August this year, several military bases across the United States experienced freezer failures, resulting in food spoilage. According to Reuters reporting on October 29, four people familiar with the matter said that the U.S. Department of Defense is investigating the incident as a suspected hacker attack.
One of the officials said that military investigators are in contact with their French counterparts. Similarly, a cyberattack targeting commercial refrigerators occurred in France earlier this month, causing operations at several local supermarkets to be paralyzed.
Regarding this situation, the US Department of Defense stated that the military network warfare forces under the US Army Cyber Command are working closely with ‘cross-departmental partners and law enforcement agencies’, but did not provide further details.
The United States Army Criminal Investigations Unit stated that its network operations office was involved in this investigation and is working with French law enforcement agencies to thoroughly investigate the 'refrigeration equipment downtime incidents occurring in Europe'.
In late August this year, refrigerators in military storerooms at at least six military bases in the United States malfunctioned. In one incident, the temperature of the refrigeration units was artificially increased at night, resulting in a large amount of food spoiling and melting the next morning.
On August 26 local time, Waco City Base in Arizona released a statement stating that the freezer at the base had "entered defrost mode, and all the food items were heated. To be honest, everything was ruined."
Previously, a cyber attack by hackers in France altered the temperature settings of cooling equipment used by more than 350 merchants. As a result, a large number of frozen foods in the supermarkets’ storage areas became spoiled.
Similar to the situation at the Wachulka Base in Arizona, this attack in France directly increased the temperature inside the equipment, rather than just causing it to disconnect. Some of the French refrigeration equipment had its temperatures raised too high, resulting in fires. A supermarket owner estimated earlier this month that the total damage caused by this attack across France could reach tens of millions of euros.
Online experts say that the threshold for carrying out this French cyberattack is very low. The equipment used in the attack heavily relied on controllers from the Danish company Danfoss. The company stated that many of the controllers are outdated, and their firmware is old, making it easy for hackers to exploit them for intrusion.
