Hackers tried to boil French blood storage, but alarms caught the spike

French health officials confirmed on Wednesday that a cyberattack on three blood plasma storage sites was stopped before any supplies were ruined. The attack hit the French Blood Establishment, or EFS, on Monday. Hackers attempted to raise the temperature inside cold-storage units from their normal setting to a level hot enough to destroy the contents.

The EFS said in a statement issued late Tuesday that its monitoring systems detected the sudden change in temperature and defrosting thresholds. Staff intervened quickly to correct the settings. The agency reported that all plasma bags and samples were either secured or moved to safe storage. No health consequences have been identified, and no blood products were lost.

A report from the French weekly Le Canard Enchaîné detailed the specific numbers involved in the breach. The hackers tried to reset the internal temperature from the standard minus 30 Celsius, which is minus 22 Fahrenheit, to as high as 110 Celsius, or 230 Fahrenheit. The attack targeted a supplier of refrigeration equipment serving the three affected EFS locations.

Coolworld, the refrigeration supplier, acknowledged the incident in a public statement. The company said the vulnerability came from a third-party component outside its direct control. Coolworld noted that only a limited number of units were affected and that it is taking measures to fix the issue. France’s national cybersecurity agency and the Health Ministry are investigating the breach. The Health Ministry has not yet named a suspect.

This incident follows a wave of similar attacks in mid-October that hit freezers and refrigerators at supermarkets in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Those earlier attacks spoiled tons of food and caused millions of dollars in losses. The Dutch supermarket chain Ahold Delhaize provided updated financial expectations on Wednesday related to those October attacks.

Ahold Delhaize expects the cyberattack to reduce its fourth-quarter sales by as much as 281 million dollars, or 250 million euros. Operating income for the period is expected to drop by over 112 million dollars, or roughly 100 million euros. CEO Franz Muller stated in a release that most disruptions were contained within two weeks, but work continues to restore normal operations. He noted that cyber threats are an increasingly harsh reality in modern business.

Blood collection and distribution operations at the EFS sites have remained uninterrupted. Hospitals and healthcare providers continue to receive necessary services. The company previously attributed the October incident to malicious actions by external parties and took several systems offline to mitigate further risks.