Hackers reportedly changed temperature settings on refrigeration equipment used by the French Blood Establishment, EFS, from around −30°C to 110°C after targeting its cooling service provider, Coolworld.
Don’t connect your freezers to the internet, or at least make it read only. At this point, any company that hasn’t taken appropriate measures after it’s happened a few times in a month should be held liable.
Read only remote access is useful for life critical supplies. You want to know, as soon as possible if your blood has gone out of safe storage temperatures, and for how long. It would let you save the supplies by moving them to a new freezer.
The problem is remote temperature control. That bit should be air gapped, unless you have a very good reason to need to adjust it remotely.
I’m not against remote monitoring. But remote controls are just fucking stupid in a freezer. Pretty much any temperature change needs someone on site anyway in order to move the freezer’s contents someplace else beforehand. Keeping temperature constant can be accomplished via a simple thermostat. If you really need some sort of cycle that changes temperature over time, the controller doing that can be purely off line as well. Anything that allows remote control endangers the contents of your freezer.
I mostly agree. I can think of a few niche uses for it. However, they are very uncommon. E.g. bringing a freezer of blood up from “deep storage” temperatures to “ready to use in a hurry”.
I can also think of a few more where a “boost mode” could be useful e.g. a supermarket that knows there is a heat wave. Over-chilling the freezers would let them cope better with the temperature spike later in the day.
Critically, these should still be within safe hard limits. The fact that hackers could effectively switch them off in mass is the huge issue.
Seems logical, but there’s a valid reason why these fridges are connected, at least for reading data (not so much for controlling).
European law dictates that things that can spoil due to heat must be stored at the right temperature. And therefore you must register the temperatures of each refrigerator at each moment to have a valid proof of compliance.
A simple supermarkt already has 50 or so appliances. And supermarkets are usually chains with hundreds of stores. So you can imagine the need of having to monitor temperatures centrally. I can imagine that for medical use, the rules are even stricter.
100% this. I work in pharma, that’s how we do it. You would use a separate system for monitoring - the plus side being is that monitoring would likely use a thermocouple which should give you better accuracy. Having an independent system also means that you can move the temperature monitoring device to wherever the “hot spot” in your freezer is based on the mapping that you should be doing.
So you pay to have someone stand around staring at a temp gauge all day? Yeah…. Sure buddy.
And a delivery of new food, temp changes. Someone leaves a door open too long, run a chill cycle. That’s why the is stuff is automated. It’s so random. The temp and fan settings are changed probably a dozen times an hour. If it’s not, spoilage will happen.
But that automation is so simple, it doesn’t need to connect to an external system. You set the target temperature once and the system regulates the cooling. No person needed, neither remote or in front of the thing.
And temperature sensors are cheap. Just have one for the regulation, and a separate one for remote monitoring.
The whole point was keeping the temperature sensor readable remotely so that you didn’t have to pay someone to stand around all day.
Yes? That was the problem with your suggesting someone go and change it. If you do that, and don’t have it automate the cooler, you STILL need someone.
Absolute worst case, add a second temp sensor for the automated chill cycles. Pretty sure temperature sensors aren’t that expensive.
So THAT one can be hacked anyways? Are you even thinking these solutions out at all? Like a little bit?
air gapping is a pretty standard practice in pharma IT systems. Its probably not super feasible for a supermarket chain but their problems are not as severe. A fridge with sensors but no remote controls would be plenty sufficient for the purpose of ‘prove we kept steak cool until we sold it’.
It happens because there is a need for a lot of things like this to have a reliable full chain of Providence for frozen food etc. it’s not enough to just accept “looks frozen to me” at the time you receive something from your supplier, you need to have access and logs and legal documentation to ensure the temperature has stayed frozen the entire time, else you might be giving thousands of people food poisoning
Fair point but does controlling the actual temperature need to come into play in these cases? I guess it wasn’t an issue before so it was just a feature to add easily and all that.
Sure, but you already likely have at least somewhat secured network around for all the other stuff you do and a computer to store those logs, no need to go trough the public internet for that data. Unless that’s some cloud based service too, in which case leaving the devices open like that is even more reckless than having Joe the delivery guy plugging the cables in after hauling that fridge up to 3rd floor.
Don’t connect your freezers to the internet, or at least make it read only. At this point, any company that hasn’t taken appropriate measures after it’s happened a few times in a month should be held liable.
I know several Danish municipalities centrally control radiator thermostats in their buildings. Schools are gonna have a wild ride this winter
No, don’t even connect it. There will be bugs and you won’t be able to fix them.
But it’s important to connect them to the Internet, so that they can receive security updates…! 😅
If you design them so that the temp control is not in software you should be fine.
Don’t even buy a freezer that has a remote control. Especially not for freezing life critical supplies.
Read only remote access is useful for life critical supplies. You want to know, as soon as possible if your blood has gone out of safe storage temperatures, and for how long. It would let you save the supplies by moving them to a new freezer.
The problem is remote temperature control. That bit should be air gapped, unless you have a very good reason to need to adjust it remotely.
I’m not against remote monitoring. But remote controls are just fucking stupid in a freezer. Pretty much any temperature change needs someone on site anyway in order to move the freezer’s contents someplace else beforehand. Keeping temperature constant can be accomplished via a simple thermostat. If you really need some sort of cycle that changes temperature over time, the controller doing that can be purely off line as well. Anything that allows remote control endangers the contents of your freezer.
I mostly agree. I can think of a few niche uses for it. However, they are very uncommon. E.g. bringing a freezer of blood up from “deep storage” temperatures to “ready to use in a hurry”.
I can also think of a few more where a “boost mode” could be useful e.g. a supermarket that knows there is a heat wave. Over-chilling the freezers would let them cope better with the temperature spike later in the day.
Critically, these should still be within safe hard limits. The fact that hackers could effectively switch them off in mass is the huge issue.
Seems logical, but there’s a valid reason why these fridges are connected, at least for reading data (not so much for controlling).
European law dictates that things that can spoil due to heat must be stored at the right temperature. And therefore you must register the temperatures of each refrigerator at each moment to have a valid proof of compliance.
A simple supermarkt already has 50 or so appliances. And supermarkets are usually chains with hundreds of stores. So you can imagine the need of having to monitor temperatures centrally. I can imagine that for medical use, the rules are even stricter.
Put the temp sensor on a separate system from the controls
100% this. I work in pharma, that’s how we do it. You would use a separate system for monitoring - the plus side being is that monitoring would likely use a thermocouple which should give you better accuracy. Having an independent system also means that you can move the temperature monitoring device to wherever the “hot spot” in your freezer is based on the mapping that you should be doing.
This. Why the hell would you need to change the setting remotely?
Temperature policy changes? So you don’t have to send a tech to each location.
Then you get what we have here. Shouldnt there be an employee at each location with a button pushing finger?
How would it adjust the temp to fix it than?
You walk over to it and make the change?
How often do these freezers need changing of temperature? My guess would be at most a handful of times a year.
Amd if the controls aren’t remotely connected you don’t have to worry about this type of issue.
So you pay to have someone stand around staring at a temp gauge all day? Yeah…. Sure buddy.
And a delivery of new food, temp changes. Someone leaves a door open too long, run a chill cycle. That’s why the is stuff is automated. It’s so random. The temp and fan settings are changed probably a dozen times an hour. If it’s not, spoilage will happen.
But that automation is so simple, it doesn’t need to connect to an external system. You set the target temperature once and the system regulates the cooling. No person needed, neither remote or in front of the thing.
And temperature sensors are cheap. Just have one for the regulation, and a separate one for remote monitoring.
Than you don’t have the logging that is required for food safety and QC.
So that one be hacked anyways and accomplish nothing?
The whole point was keeping the temperature sensor readable remotely so that you didn’t have to pay someone to stand around all day.
Absolute worst case, add a second temp sensor for the automated chill cycles. Pretty sure temperature sensors aren’t that expensive.
Yes? That was the problem with your suggesting someone go and change it. If you do that, and don’t have it automate the cooler, you STILL need someone.
So THAT one can be hacked anyways? Are you even thinking these solutions out at all? Like a little bit?
air gapping is a pretty standard practice in pharma IT systems. Its probably not super feasible for a supermarket chain but their problems are not as severe. A fridge with sensors but no remote controls would be plenty sufficient for the purpose of ‘prove we kept steak cool until we sold it’.
Also don’t make freezers that can be set for 110 degrees.
IIRC they are locking them into a defrost cycle that would normally heat up the coils for a minute or two, just long enough to melt the frost.
That still seems like a design flaw. A simple thermostat would cut the heater off past the right defrost temperature and would have prevented this.
But it probably added a couple Euros to the price so they didn’t do it
It happens because there is a need for a lot of things like this to have a reliable full chain of Providence for frozen food etc. it’s not enough to just accept “looks frozen to me” at the time you receive something from your supplier, you need to have access and logs and legal documentation to ensure the temperature has stayed frozen the entire time, else you might be giving thousands of people food poisoning
For that, all you need is temperature sensors. No remote control necessary.
Fair point but does controlling the actual temperature need to come into play in these cases? I guess it wasn’t an issue before so it was just a feature to add easily and all that.
Sure, but you already likely have at least somewhat secured network around for all the other stuff you do and a computer to store those logs, no need to go trough the public internet for that data. Unless that’s some cloud based service too, in which case leaving the devices open like that is even more reckless than having Joe the delivery guy plugging the cables in after hauling that fridge up to 3rd floor.