| ▲ | mneil 9 hours ago |
| This is terrible. But, at the same time, why now? This seems like something you'd want to hold onto for use later as a nation state. And there's no money to be made here since you can't really ransom it. Was this just a petty attack to scare the public? On the bright side I'm sure the manufacturer and others will have an increased security posture going forward. |
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| ▲ | codedokode 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > On the bright side I'm sure the manufacturer I initially misread it as "On the bright side, I'm the manufacturer..." (and earn a nice profit). |
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| ▲ | queenkjuul 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Manufacturer abdicated saying those models are no longer supported and so not receive security updates. Wonderful world we live in where refrigerators and cars also become e-waste because a manufacturer gets tired of patching them |
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| ▲ | esseph 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Wonderful world we live in where refrigerators and cars also become e-waste because a manufacturer gets tired of patching them We're in a "post-patching world" in that the number of 0days coming out is so rapid, I'm not sure it would even matter. The physical architecture itself is the problem. There needs to be better controls (physical and software) to access those systems. Airgap possibily. |
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| ▲ | newsclues 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Who benefits from chaos? There is a war raging in Europe, maybe start there |
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| ▲ | psychoslave 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Script kiddies are on LLM steroids now. I’m so glad I kept my home "smart" stuffs fully disconnected from any network. No, I can’t control my home temperature from the other side of the world when in vacation, and so can’t the rest of the world until they physically enter it. |
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| ▲ | bambax 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I think that's exactly what happened. A kid found out (via an LLM or otherwise) that fridges' temperature were remotely controlled, probably with lax security (or no security at all) and decided to play with it. It's not immediately obvious to me why fridges in supermarkets need remote control; a supermarket is a place where there are always people, it's not a base on Mars. And even if a remote is needed, it should probably not go further than the manager's office. | | |
| ▲ | Shank 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > It's not immediately obvious to me why fridges in supermarkets need remote control I don’t know to what degree control is needed, but remote supervision of cold holding temperatures is good to make sure food doesn’t spoil. Most places that don’t have networked fridges have staff manually logging the cold holding temperatures to make sure things are working. Again, though, I don’t know about making changes though. | | |
| ▲ | bambax 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | In this case it's not like the devices were turned off, they were put on "defrost" which means heating up to 50°C (122°F). Why would you need the ability to remotely set all your fridges to defrost?? | | |
| ▲ | amluto 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | One possibility is that it’s maybe useful for the fleet operator to be able to remotely update firmware and the attacker used that. The other, more likely, answer is that there’s a diagnostic mode that allows raw control of the system and no one bothered to require physical presence to enable service mode. With remote firmware update capability, at attacker could easily brick the entire fleet. With just service access it could be possible but would be more complex. |
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| ▲ | bmilleare 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I remember having to do this every few hours 25 years ago when working at a store part-time as a student. Having networked telemetry seems like a good idea, just not sure why they would need remote control too - that seems far more dangerous than necessary. |
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| ▲ | queenkjuul 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 15 years ago a retail chain i worked for had all their HVAC thermostats centrally managed by corporate. This isn't new and it is stupid but how else do you ensure shareholders keep every possible cent of profit (in the short term of course) | | |
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| ▲ | drillsteps5 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Alternative theory: Google's "mea culpa" on "misalignment incident" while testing the agents using their "next gen frontier model" is coming out in three... two... one... |
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| ▲ | AnimalMuppet 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > On the bright side I'm sure the manufacturer and others will have an increased security posture going forward. Wow, are you an optimist. The manufacturer has stated that they're past the period of security updates. And others... meaning the supermarkets? They outsource that. The people they outsource it to? Maybe they'll start paying attention to security. |
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| ▲ | pvaldes 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > why now? Probably to inflict pain on the life of the voters so they can blame the government and manipulate the 2027 French presidential election in April. Maybe just a test. Same as the high velocity train being sabotaged again just in the Spain national day. Hybrid war. |
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| ▲ | input_sh 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Come election day, do you really think many people's deciding factor would be a supermarket refrigerator incident from half a year ago? Especially considering that around the same time something far more... shall I say politically meaningful was happening at the same time, such as students protesting the lack of school funding? | | |
| ▲ | pvaldes 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is just one in a thousand problems that will happen until that day. A high velocity train wagon was set on flames today, blocking the railway and creating chaos among thousands of passengers that try to return home after the holidays. Why?, because it makes the government look bad, and inflicts maximum pain on people, just when Spain is also about to celebrate elections. Angry people vote the loudest voices. In France this benefits the pro-Russian Lepen's party with the "government is a disaster but we will make them pay for your suffering". Page "16" of the manual. In the end is all the same handbook all around the planet. Just by the record, EU has just approved the biggest packet of sanctions against Russia so yes, they know. The more desperate grows Russia, the more this will happen. Until it will stop, suddenly, for no reason. |
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| ▲ | dist-epoch 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| You assume there must be some nation state behind it. But it could be just for the lulz. Remember the hackers behind the seven proxies, AntiSec, which hacked the NATO library website, and went to prison for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_AntiSec |
