Why Brussels recommends an emergency kit again a year and a half after the previous warning
Brussels asks to prepare homes for 72 hours and train children to react to crises
Quick Look
The European Union insists that households have emergency kits for 72 hours after cyber attacks on supermarkets and blood banks in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and false bomb threats on European flights, including one to Madrid.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
The European Union recommended a year and a half ago that households have an emergency kit for at least 72 hours. That announcement occurred a month before the blackout in the Iberian Peninsula. Now Brussels insists and asks to train children to react to crises, after cyber attacks on supermarkets in several European countries, false bomb threats on airplanes and an attack on the central blood bank in France.
A year and a half after the European Union advised households to have an emergency kit for at least 72 hours, this week Brussels has once again insisted on it. He has even gone further because he has asked to train children so that they have the ability to react to crisis situations. On that occasion, the announcement occurred just a month before the blackout that left the Iberian Peninsula in darkness and has now occurred after cyber attacks on supermarkets in several European countries and false bomb threats on airplanes. In France, for its part, the central blood bank has also been attacked.
The first hacks into European supermarkets occurred in mid-October. The affected countries were France, Belgium and the Netherlands, although France was the one that suffered the worst. There, the hackers entered the remote control system of the refrigeration systems and launched a rapid defrost program, setting them at 50 degrees, which caused the products to spoil. A total of 700 supermarkets were affected and the losses were in the millions. In Belgium and the Netherlands, self-collection boxes and home delivery services were affected.
In the first days of November, hackers attacked again, but this time many more countries. Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Estonia, Italy, Germany and Portugal reported attacks similar to those reported in previous weeks in France. As in the French country, the pirates managed to once again manipulate the refrigeration systems remotely, activating the defrosting mode of the refrigerators and freezers and raising their temperature.
The next target of the hackers was the refrigeration facilities of three centers of the French Blood Establishment (EFS), the national blood bank. The cyber attack, which changed the temperature from -30 degrees to 110 degrees Celsius, was quickly controlled and, according to the EFS, no losses or health consequences were recorded, FranceInfo reported. The cold rooms housed "bags of plasma intended for transfusions" or "for the manufacture of medicines."
This week, false bomb threats on dozens of European flights have been added to the cyber attacks. This Friday alone, 16 flights were affected, four of them to Madrid; while on Thursday a total of 25 aircraft received false bomb alerts. In Ireland, public broadcaster RTE was evacuated due to another bomb threat.
What should the emergency kit contain?
In this situation, it is advisable to follow the suggestion from Brussels and prepare an emergency kit. But what should it contain?
What to Watch
AI outlook — possibilities, not facts
The EU will implement training programs for children on reaction to crisis situations
Likely · Within weeks
Open Questions
- Who is responsible for cyber attacks?
- What is the total amount of million-dollar losses in supermarkets?
- Whether fake bomb threats are related to cyberattacks
- What specific measures will the EU take to train children?
