Supermarket freezers are now cyberattack targets, and a machine keeping food...

Supermarket freezers are now cyberattack targets, and a machine keeping food cold should never be reachable from the open internet.

Overnight Sunday into Monday, similar incidents hit stores in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe. An ICA store in Sjöbo reported its refrigerators and freezers had been set to 50°C.

Another ICA store in Stockholm threw away a significant quantity of food. Retailers and suppliers also reported incidents in Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, the Netherlands and Estonia. Whether these events share an attacker isn't known yet.

Danfoss told NOS that at least 17 Dutch businesses were affected, including butchers and neighborhood shops. The company says those installations were running on unprotected networks with default passwords. It had warned customers on October 13 to remove direct internet exposure.

One Selver store in Estonia had its freezer set to 50°C too, but the company had prepared after the earlier attacks. Its partner responded within ten minutes. The temperature rose only two or three degrees, and no products were damaged.

Governments are telling citizens to stock food and water at home. Sweden recommends at least a week for crises that interrupt electricity, water or food shopping.

The engineer designing the system should justify every outside connection, and the machine should keep doing its essential job when that connection disappears.

Keep your pantry stocked. Harden everything.

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