SCWorld.com reported that “Based on suspected cyberattacks on European supermarkets, three regional blood banks in France, and at least six U.S. military commissaries, the federal government has advised U.S. companies that run refrigeration controllers in retail grocery and cold storage facilities to lock down their systems.” The November 6, 2026 article entitled “FBI, CISA warn of cyberattacks targeting refrigeration systems” (https://tinyurl.com/3bnyueb3) included these comments:
The Nov. 5 joint advisory was made by the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Health and Human Services (HHS), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Department of Transportation (DoT).
According to the FBI and CISA, threat actors may exploit flaws in these refrigeration and cooling systems via an authentication bypass, arbitrary code injection, and weak configurations.
Officials said owners and operators can defend against potential cyberattacks by using strong authentication, keeping systems updated, identifying any systems that are accessible from the internet, removing unnecessary remote access, and securing any necessary remote access.
“The FBI and CISA warning hits close to home,” said Melvin Lammerts, co-founder and head of hacking at Hadrian. “We’ve already seen refrigeration controllers taken over in European supermarkets and blood-storage sites, and the Pentagon is investigating similar freezer failures at U.S. military commissaries. In each case the attackers didn’t need sophisticated malware. They reached internet-exposed or poorly- secured temperature controllers and forced them into defrost or heating mode.”
Lammerts added that every team running cold-chain systems should assume they are in scope: pull the controllers off the public internet or lock down any remote access. Change default passwords, apply available patches, and isolate the OT network. Finally, teams need to set hard temperature limits so the equipment can’t be driven outside safe ranges.
Watch out!