French blood bank cyberattack: hackers tried to overheat plasma

A cyberattack hit several blood banks in France but was stopped before it could damage any blood products or samples, AP reported, citing authorities. The hackers' goal was to raise the temperature in the storage units to extremely high levels.

What happened at the storage facilities

According to the French blood service (EFS), whose statement was published on Tuesday evening, on Monday the temperatures and safe temperature thresholds on three of its plasma freezers were set to extremely high values. The attack targeted the supplier of these freezers and affected three separate EFS units.

The freezers held bags of plasma for transfusions, as well as plasma used to manufacture medicines. The bags were either moved elsewhere or protected. No medical consequences have been identified, and no blood product was lost, the EFS stressed.

How losses were avoided

“Monitoring and alert systems quickly detected the anomalies, allowing staff to take action so that neither blood products nor samples were harmed,” the service said in its statement. Blood donation and distribution, it added, were not interrupted.

The incident is being investigated by France's national cybersecurity agency and the health ministry, AP writes.

Link to the attacks on store freezers

The attack came amid another wave of disruptions: this week, supermarkets in several European countries reported that the temperatures in their freezers had been sharply raised remotely. As a result, tons of food were lost, with damages running into the millions of euros.

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz