AI Cyberattacks Are A Real And Present Danger

Over the past month, hackers took control of refrigeration systems in hundreds of European supermarkets and turned freezers into heaters overnight. They tried to do the same to French blood banks. These cyberattacks preview what’s coming. Writing the programs for these attacks may soon be as easy as asking an AI to turn Europe’s supermarket freezers into heaters from midnight to 3 a.m. local time. The AI would do the rest.

The risk of hacking infrastructure systems has been known for so long that Hollywood made it a blockbuster plot nearly 20 years ago. In the 2007 blockbuster film Live Free or Die Hard, a band of cyberterrorists shuts down the computer systems that run the United States, taking out transportation, communications, banking and power from behind their keyboards. In the past, pulling that off would take a criminal mastermind and a room full of expert programmers. That may no longer be the case.

The Freezer Attacks

The first wave of the recent attacks struck France on the night of October 11 to 12. Attackers took over refrigeration controllers in 500 to 700 food stores. Intermarché said its units heated to 50 degrees Celsius, or 122 degrees Fahrenheit, for six hours, spoiling food worth millions of euros. A second wave three weeks later hit stores in Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Germany and Sweden. The European Union warned of a deliberate attempt to disrupt the food supply chain.

The same night, attackers raised the temperature limits at three French blood bank sites that store plasma for transfusions. Separate alarms caught the change. So, thankfully, no blood was lost. In the United States, the Pentagon is treating freezer failures at military commissaries in August as a suspected hack.