Guest Post by Leo Hohmann
The food wars continue to rage as hackers struck a second time in less than a month against grocery store cooling systems in Europe on Monday.
On October 11, an unknown entity hacked into the refrigeration controllers at up to 700 French supermarkets and set them to defrost mode overnight, causing their refrigerators to overheat. The cold chain disruption forced supermarkets to discard thousands of pounds of spoiled goods, resulting in losses estimated to total tens of millions of euros.
But on Monday, November 2, the attack was more widespread as cyber attackers made sure six countries felt the pain.
The incidents caused temperature spikes and spoiled food in the refrigeration and freezer sections at stores in Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Estonia, according to a report by NBC News.
Below is an excerpt from the article:
In another incident on October 24, a Quaker Oats facility in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that was world’s largest cereal milling center, processing over 2 million pounds of oats daily, spontaneously exploded.
BOTTOM LINE: These types of incidents are totally preventable. If you’re a private company in the grocery business, stop using internet-connected computerized cooling systems. It’s just that simple. But they won’t do that because businesses are addicted to the ease of efficiency offered by such technology. Instead they will spend millions of dollars trying to find another stop gap “patch” to plug a cyber hole in the system, while the hackers have already moved on to finding the next hole.
This should also be a lesson for homeowners: refrain from buying “smart” appliances, which are easily tracked and hacked. Sometimes, less is better when it comes to technology. And analogue is ALWAYS safer and more secure than digital.
Christian Westbrook, an independent food industry analyst and author of the Substack outlet Unshadowed, wrote in a post:
When they said you will “own nothing,” they meant it. You will not own anything that you allow into your home, your car, your personal space, your devices, or even your body, when it is connected to the internet. Even if you possess the title or a bill of sale, it can still be controlled from an outside source if it includes a chip allowing connectivity.
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[ H/T The Burning Platform ]
‘The internet of things was always a bad idea’ and the ‘internet of bodies’ will be an even worse idea.
The food wars continue to rage as hackers struck a second time in less than a month against grocery store cooling systems in Europe on Monday.
On October 11, an unknown entity hacked into the refrigeration controllers at up to 700 French supermarkets and set them to defrost mode overnight, causing their refrigerators to overheat. The cold chain disruption forced supermarkets to discard thousands of pounds of spoiled goods, resulting in losses estimated to total tens of millions of euros.
But on Monday, November 2, the attack was more widespread as cyber attackers made sure six countries felt the pain.
The incidents caused temperature spikes and spoiled food in the refrigeration and freezer sections at stores in Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Estonia, according to a report by NBC News.
Below is an excerpt from the article:
In another incident on October 24, a Quaker Oats facility in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that was world’s largest cereal milling center, processing over 2 million pounds of oats daily, spontaneously exploded.
BOTTOM LINE: These types of incidents are totally preventable. If you’re a private company in the grocery business, stop using internet-connected computerized cooling systems. It’s just that simple. But they won’t do that because businesses are addicted to the ease of efficiency offered by such technology. Instead they will spend millions of dollars trying to find another stop gap “patch” to plug a cyber hole in the system, while the hackers have already moved on to finding the next hole.
This should also be a lesson for homeowners: refrain from buying “smart” appliances, which are easily tracked and hacked. Sometimes, less is better when it comes to technology. And analogue is ALWAYS safer and more secure than digital.
Christian Westbrook, an independent food industry analyst and author of the Substack outlet Unshadowed, wrote in a post:
When they said you will “own nothing,” they meant it. You will not own anything that you allow into your home, your car, your personal space, your devices, or even your body, when it is connected to the internet. Even if you possess the title or a bill of sale, it can still be controlled from an outside source if it includes a chip allowing connectivity.
Tweet
Continue reading...
[ H/T The Burning Platform ]
