Photo: Ethan Morgan / U.S. Air Force (archive)
A cyberattack reached refrigeration systems at three sites of France’s national blood service through an outside equipment provider, but alarms and staff intervention prevented blood products and samples from being compromised, the service said.
The Établissement Français du Sang, or EFS, said no health impact had been identified and no blood products had been lost, according to The Record and The Associated Press. The incident exposes a different kind of healthcare cyber risk: changes to the equipment that keeps medical supplies safe, rather than the theft of patient records.
Alarms caught altered settings
EFS said temperature and defrosting thresholds had been raised in cold rooms used to store blood products and samples before distribution or further processing. Those altered settings should not be confused with temperatures the products actually reached.
The service’s monitoring and alarm systems quickly detected the anomalies. Depending on the site, staff brought the affected equipment under control or took it out of service and moved stored products to other facilities as a precaution, The Record reported, citing EFS.
The attack did not directly target EFS, the organization said. It reached the service through a third-party refrigeration-equipment provider. The reports reviewed do not establish who carried it out, and no group has been attributed responsibility.
A supply-chain risk for healthcare
For hospitals, blood services and the businesses that maintain their equipment, the concern extends beyond office computers. Refrigeration controls are part of the physical chain that protects medical supplies. An outside provider’s problem can therefore require an immediate response inside a healthcare facility.
In this case, EFS says those safeguards worked. There is no reported loss of blood products or samples, and the incident is not evidence of patient harm.
Franceinfo, also quoting the service, reported that EFS was reinforcing monitoring of equipment operation and temperatures and working with France’s cybersecurity agency ANSSI and the Health Ministry.
The Record placed the incident alongside refrigeration disruptions reported elsewhere in Europe. That wider pattern does not establish that the same people were responsible for every attack, or that the equipment at EFS used the same systems.
JBizNews Desk | Paris
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