The Pentagon is investigating a series of freezer and refrigerator malfunctions at various military installations as a possible cyberattack.
The Army Criminal Investigation Division’s Cyber Field Office, the Defense Commissary Agency, and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service launched the investigation to “determine the full extent of what occurred with the refrigeration units in the commissaries on military installations,” a spokesperson for Army CID told the Washington Examiner.
The investigations were first reported in early September, following the outages in late August, though the situation gained new traction this week amid reporting that the outages are being viewed as a suspected hack, according to Reuters. Officials have not attributed the attacks to any group or individual.
At least half a dozen bases shared public statements about refrigeration outages, saying that customers would be unable to buy meat, dairy, produce, or frozen products.
Stores on these bases confirmed on social media they had outages: Fort Irwin, California; F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming; Fort Huachuca, Arizona; Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island; Columbus Air Force Base, Missouri; and Travis Air Force Base, California.
The Fort Huachuca, Arizona, Facebook account said on Aug. 26 that its freezer “went into defrost mode where it heated up all the food. Trust us when we say it was ‘spoiled.’”
The incident comes around the time hundreds of retail locations across France had their refrigerators turned up to more than 120 degrees by remote hackers this month. The tampering caused fires and a significant loss of food inventory.
The U.S. military investigators have been working with French law enforcement to understand the refrigeration outages in Europe, the Army CID spokesperson said.
“I confirm that a cyberattack has been affecting, since last night, the cold production facilities of several stores in our network,” said Dominique Schelcher, CEO of retail group Coopérative U, one of several major French corporations that were affected by the attack. “Our teams are fully mobilized, in coordination with refrigeration specialists, to restore the situation as quickly as possible.”
The spate of refrigerator and freezer malfunctions highlights the ongoing concerns about cyberattacks on various forms of infrastructure that can impact people’s daily lives.
LATEST IRAN WAR ESTIMATES: $47 BILLION IN TOTAL COST, NEARLY $30 BILLION IN MUNITIONS
War Secretary Pete Hegseth recently announced two initiatives, one to build a new military installation domestically and another to work toward making sure every U.S. base has its own power grid so that it can continue to operate in the event of an attack on U.S. critical infrastructure. The first project is called the “Next Great American Base,” and the second is called “FORTRESS America.”
“I created FORTRESS America because we can no longer rely on two oceans to protect us,” top Pentagon spokesman and FORTRESS America creator Sean Parnell told the Washington Examiner. “That outdated assumption no longer reflects the threats we face. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth understand this and have already paved the way with Golden Dome and a renewed focus on the West Hemisphere, including Greenland and Panama. All of it reflects a fundamental shift in how we defend America. War has evolved, and our defense must evolve with them.”
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
