After supermarket refrigerators were hacked, EU security chief: Home appliances may be the next target

After a series of recent cyber attacks on supermarket refrigeration equipment, the EU's security chief warned today that the next target may be household appliances, urging Europe to invest more money to deal with increasingly severe cyber threats.

Agence France-Presse reported that between October and November this year, supermarkets in at least 12 European countries were attacked by cyberattacks, with France being the most severely affected.

Juhan Lepassaar, Managing Director of the European Union Internet Security Agency (ENISA), said: "Information security should never and cannot be remedied after the fact. Today it is the refrigerator, tomorrow it may be the router, and the day after tomorrow it may be the turn of various home appliances, etc."

The Athens-based EU Cybersecurity Agency released its latest biennial report on the current situation of EU cybersecurity in Brussels. In an interview with AFP locally, Le Passard called on manufacturers to implement safety designs during product development. "All accidents can actually be avoided. The question is are we ready to invest in this? Cybersecurity is expensive."

Le Passard said that security is crucial because "as a citizen, as an individual, every service you rely on contains a digital element, and as long as there is a piece of code in it that is not protected, it may be hacked."

He pointed out that the worst-case scenario would be the loss of services on which daily life depends, "such as the police not being able to arrive, the fire brigade not being able to dispatch, the hospital not being able to operate, or public transportation not being able to get you to your destination."

"These are services that we rely on for normal life and must operate around the clock. Once these services cannot operate properly, we will be immediately affected."

Hundreds of French supermarkets suffered cyber attacks on October 11 and 12, which caused the temperatures of refrigerators and freezers in stores to rise, forcing many stores to discard all perishable food stocks.

The French government determined on the 9th that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was responsible for the cyber attack on supermarkets.

Le Passard did not comment directly on France's accusations, but he pointed out that there are known "state-level actors" pro-Iran and Russian authorities who continue to target Europe for attacks and who "cooperate a lot" with each other.

"China, Iran, and North Korea all have many state-backed operational threat actors, and they do target European companies and European interests," Lepassard said.

He welcomed the EU's information security rules that will take full effect next year, as well as the EU's plan to "double the size and resources of ENISA", saying that this is a good start, and said that relevant measures are "never too many."