Hackers turned refrigerators into ovens: three major cyber attacks in days
Cyber attacks on refrigerators of businesses in nine European countries, theft of $6.3 billion from Binance and a fake nuclear alert in Kyiv within days.
Cyber attacks on refrigerators, blood banks and cryptocurrencies spark concern across Europe
Last week, a butcher shop owner in Kifissia announced that his store had been hit by a cyber attack: hackers raised the temperatures in his refrigerators to 150 degrees Celsius. It was the first attack of its kind in the country — but not in Europe. As Ethnos reports, similar incidents had previously occurred in French supermarkets, before the phenomenon spread to other countries and different business sectors.
The same concern is reflected in an analysis by the Guardian, which refers to the case of Alex Pearce, owner of a fruit and vegetable wholesale business in London. On Monday of last week, during his regular morning inspection, he noticed the defrost indicator lit on cooling units 2 and 4, with the displays showing 150 degrees Celsius. The same was happening at the company's largest refrigeration facility. Pearce reacted immediately: he disconnected the cable connecting the units to the internet. His suspicions of a cyber attack were confirmed.
"If this had happened on a Saturday morning, when I am usually not here, it could have even caused a fire," Pearce said.
The same day, similar problems were reported by businesses in Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden. In some shops, temperatures in refrigerators and freezers reached 50 degrees Celsius. French blood banks were also among the targets.
Three serious cyber attacks in a few days
The attack on refrigerators was not the only serious incident of the period. On 30 October, Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, fell victim to a theft of $6.3 billion — an unprecedented sum. On 1 November, hackers breached Ukraine's emergency alert application and sent Kyiv residents a fake warning message about a nuclear attack.
The message from the relevant authorities is clear: we should expect further disruptions in cyberspace. Richard Horne, head of Britain's National Centre for Cyber Security (NCSC), said this week that we are still in the early stages of a new era of cyber attacks. He highlighted that artificial intelligence tools are now revealing security gaps in information systems at a speed that was not previously possible, and that the number of vulnerable points awaiting exploitation is enormous.
Last month, websites around the world were temporarily taken offline for precautionary reasons, when an artificial intelligence tool from OpenAI detected a serious security flaw in the PHP programming language — a language used for much of the World Wide Web. During the same period, French supermarket refrigerators had also been attacked, in an incident that may have been a trial run for the larger attack that followed.
A "Wuhan moment" for cyberspace
Entrepreneur and technology commentator Azeem Azhar characterised the situation as a "Wuhan moment" — a phrase referring to the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in China and suggesting that the current wave of cyber attacks may signal the start of a much larger crisis. The way artificial intelligence models identify vulnerabilities, which attackers then exploit, reminds him exactly of those early weeks of the pandemic.
In the same analysis, Azhar also cited a warning from Matthew Prince, a cybersecurity sector executive, who had stated the previous month that two years may follow in which every week feels like the world is collapsing from new cyber threats.
Geopolitical tensions and artificial intelligence behind the attacks
The warnings from authorities are based on two key factors: geopolitical tensions and the rapid development of artificial intelligence. At least one expert estimates that the attacks on refrigerators display characteristics pointing to Russian activity. The theft from Binance has been attributed to North Korea, whilst Russia is considered one of the possible suspects for the incident in Ukraine.
Britain's NCSC warned last week that by 2028 it is very likely that malicious software exploiting artificial intelligence will be used in attacks against British power stations, airports and hospitals. This situation brings back into focus the dangers lurking behind internet-connected devices — from the refrigerator of a butcher shop in Kifissia to the critical infrastructure of Europe.
Source: Ethnos