US Agencies Issue Joint Warning on Cyber Threats to Industrial Refrigeration and Cold Chain Systems
CISA, FBI, HHS, USDA and DOT warn of an ongoing cyber campaign that forces refrigeration units into continuous heating and defrost cycles, causing inventory loss and fire hazards.
Five United States government agencies - CISA, the FBI, HHS, USDA and the Department of Transportation - issued a joint advisory on 5 November warning of an ongoing cyber threat to industrial refrigeration and cold chain monitoring systems across the food, agriculture, transportation and pharmaceutical sectors.
The advisory documents a specific attack pattern in which threat actors force refrigeration units into continuous heating and defrost cycles, resulting in large-scale inventory loss and fire hazards. Targets have expanded beyond European supermarkets to United States military installations and at least one blood bank, according to the agencies. The warning follows a mass-hacking campaign affecting freezers across 11 European countries and escalates the earlier European policy response into formal technical guidance.
The agencies urged critical infrastructure operators to harden refrigeration and monitoring systems, including maintaining monitoring that remains independent of operational technology controllers. Reporting by TechCrunch noted that Danfoss units that lost security update support were identified as an attack vector.