US Agencies Urge Organizations to Harden Refrigeration Controllers
Source SecurityWeek
Description
US government agencies have issued warnings urging organizations in healthcare, chemical, food, and transportation sectors to harden industrial refrigeration and cold chain monitoring systems. Recent cyberattacks in Europe targeted refrigeration controllers in supermarkets and blood banks, causing significant inventory loss and equipment hazards. Attackers manipulated temperature settings to spoil food and trigger defrost cycles, with some incidents causing fires. The threat actors may exploit vulnerabilities such as authentication bypasses, code injection, and weak configurations in internet-exposed controllers. Agencies recommend removing these controllers from internet access or protecting them with firewalls, enforcing strong authentication, and maintaining system updates and backups.