Cyberattack hits French blood bank site but no blood products are
compromised
[November 05, 2026]
By SYLVIE CORBET
PARIS (AP) — A cyberattack on several blood banks tried to raise
temperatures to extremely high levels but was thwarted before it could
do any damage to blood products or samples, French authorities said.
The incident comes after supermarkets in a number of European countries
reported this week that their fridges and freezers warmed up after they
were remotely taken over, resulting in tons of spoiled food at a total
cost of millions of dollars (euros).
The French Blood Establishment, or EFS, said “temperature and defrosting
thresholds were raised to extremely high levels” on Monday at three of
its cold-storage sites for plasma, in a statement released late Tuesday.
Monitoring systems quickly detected the problem, allowing staff to take
action in time so that "no blood products or samples were compromised,”
it said.
French weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné, which first reported the
cyberattack, said that the attack had attempted to reset temperatures
that normally are at minus 30 Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit) to as high
as 110 C (230 F).
The cyberattack hit a supplier of refrigeration equipment at three EFS
sites. The products stored were bags of plasma intended for transfusions
and plasma used to manufacture medicines, and were either transferred or
secured, the EFS statement said.
“No health consequences have been identified, and no blood products were
lost,” the blood bank said.
The EFS said blood collection and distribution operations remain
uninterrupted, ensuring continued services for patients at hospitals and
other healthcare.
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 The company supplying the
refrigeration equipment, Coolworld, said in a statement it “is
aware” of the cybersecurity incident.
“The vulnerability currently being reported in the media relates to
a component from a third-party supplier and was outside Coolworld’s
direct control,” the statement said. The company said only a limited
number of units were affected and it was taking “appropriate
measures.”
France’s national cybersecurity agency and the Health Ministry are
investigating the incident.
This week’s cyberattacks on refrigeration systems mirrored an
episode in mid-October that targeted fridges and freezers at
hundreds of supermarkets and independent stores across France,
Belgium and the Netherlands.
One of the chains hit in that earlier incident, Dutch supermarket
chain Ahold Delhaize, said Wednesday that it expected the
cyberattack to reduce its sales in the fourth quarter by as much as
250 million euros ($281 million), and crimp its operating income for
the period by up to 100 million euros.
“While most of the disruption was contained within two weeks, work
continues to fully restore our normal operations,” CEO Franz Muller
said. “As we all recognize, cyber threats are an increasingly harsh
reality of doing business today,” he said in a statement released
with Delhaize’s quarterly earnings.
The company had earlier blamed “malicious actions by others” and
proactively took some of its systems offline, including websites and
apps for its various brands in Europe as well as in the United
States.
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