Cyber sabotage of French supermarche fridges
Cyber sabotage of French supermarche fridges
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Discussion

Pupp

Original Poster:

13,011 posts

303 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
Another example of the ‘benefits’ of our increasingly connected world…

Fridges in French supermarkets hit by cyber attack https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crq5nzxv9q4yo

-Lummox-

2,320 posts

244 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
Knee jerk reaction to Russia's bot farms being attacked, perhaps?

J6542

4,290 posts

75 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
The system must have went into meltdown

Mr Penguin

5,071 posts

70 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
What are the advantages of having a fridge connected to the internet?

Sporky

12,504 posts

95 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
Mr Penguin said:
What are the advantages of having a fridge connected to the internet?
Remote monitoring.

butchstewie

68,222 posts

241 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
I expect telemetry and monitoring.

-Lummox-

2,320 posts

244 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
Mr Penguin said:
What are the advantages of having a fridge connected to the internet?
Presumably the main one is to be notified when it develops a fault / behaves in an unexpected way.

frisbee

5,628 posts

141 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
Denial of Croissants attack!

TikTak

3,155 posts

50 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
Being in tech my whole career but having grown up when the world was still mostly analog (millennial life), I'm firmly in the boat of wondering why we need this stuff, and does it add any real value?

This is mostly just funny and typical of these things. No one's spending loads developing software for a fridge to be robust.

Thought occurs as to why a fridge/freezer has the ability to be set to + 50C though, regardless of remote access security flaws.

Arrivalist

3,597 posts

30 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
TikTak said:
Thought occurs as to why a fridge/freezer has the ability to be set to + 50C though, regardless of remote access security flaws.
Bringing Brie to room temperature quickly?

Patio

2,074 posts

42 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
Quite a few UK supermarket freezers struggled and failed this year

Mrs P was told it was mainly due to the high temp of the summer we've had but could it be due something like this me wonders

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c77yejxnvpxo


Thinking about it, how come fridges/freezers work fine in higher temp locations like France, Spain, Greece etc but ours fail

Tin foil at the ready

Edited by Patio on Monday 12th October 16:46

butchstewie

68,222 posts

241 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
Whilst I'm not a refrigeration engineer I think it's more likely that fridges weren't designed with 40 degree indoor temperatures in mind.

Randy Winkman

22,735 posts

220 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
One cyber attack I heard of was when someone remotely locked all of the bedroom doors at a posh ski resort hotel in the Alps and tried to get money to unlock them again.

drdino

1,331 posts

173 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
Patio said:
Quite a few UK supermarket freezers struggled and failed this year

Mrs P was told it was mainly due to the high temp of the summer we've had but could it be due something like this me wonders

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c77yejxnvpxo


Thinking about it, how come fridges/freezers work fine in higher temp locations like France, Spain, Greece etc but ours fail

Tin foil at the ready

Edited by Patio on Monday 12th October 16:46
Different climate classes:

SN: Subnormal units can operate between +10°C and +32°C.
N: Normal units can operate between +16°C and +32°C.
ST: Subtropical units can operate between +16°C and +38°C.
T: Tropical units can operate between +16°C and +43°C.



100SRV

2,384 posts

273 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
drdino said:
Different climate classes:

SN: Subnormal units can operate between +10°C and +32°C.
N: Normal units can operate between +16°C and +32°C.
ST: Subtropical units can operate between +16°C and +38°C.
T: Tropical units can operate between +16°C and +43°C.
That's interesting, thank you for explaining.

Mr MXT

7,794 posts

314 months

Monday 12th October
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Not cool, guys.

RizzoTheRat

29,067 posts

223 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
TikTak said:
Thought occurs as to why a fridge/freezer has the ability to be set to + 50C though, regardless of remote access security flaws.
They don't, but some commercial freezers have a defrost function that uses electric heating elements. If a hacker shuts down the motor and leaves the heating elements on it's going to get very warm, and possibly catch fire.

Peterpetrole

1,868 posts

28 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
Family Hub Fridge downloading TB of data

https://community.smartthings.com/t/family-hub-fri...

geeks

11,836 posts

170 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
Peterpetrole said:
Family Hub Fridge downloading TB of data

https://community.smartthings.com/t/family-hub-fri...
There is one with a coffee machine uploading similar looks like it was hacked and added to a botnet!

Crafty_

14,206 posts

231 months

Monday 12th October
quotequote all
Remote monitoring of devices/machines can provide significant savings in maintenance cost, the more complicated the device, the more the savings.

But, they need to be secure. This is not trivial task and something that needs effort and continued upkeep. The good thing nowadays is there are lots of scanners that seek out vulnerabilities in exposed interfaces so you can assess your risks. Certificates are dropping to a 47 (or less) day lifetime to help make it more difficult to compromise.

You do need to look at your architecture too - this article ( https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kil... ) is a decade (!) old and one would hope we're all more savvy now. Why should a remote connection be able to control any of the car's systems ? especially when the vehicle is moving (thus being driven) and those systems are safety critical ? Design your systems with security in mind - zero trust and all that stuff. You'd hope that Jeep (and others) learnt their lesson and have made their products secure.

I read the headline as "French refrigeration company fails to adequately protect their systems". Bit harsh, but you can't be complacent on it.