EU Cybersecurity Chief Warns of Home Appliance Attacks
Juhan Lepassaar warns European households of potential cyberattacks on home appliances following Iranian-linked hacks that destroyed food stocks in French supermarkets.
The executive director of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, Juhan Lepassaar, warned that European households face potential cyberattacks on routers and home appliances. This warning follows a series of hacks on October 11 and 12 that targeted hundreds of French supermarkets, where attackers manipulated refrigeration systems to raise temperatures and destroy entire inventories of perishable food.
The French Republic has held the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran responsible for the supermarket incidents. Lepassaar noted that state-aligned actors from Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea regularly target European interests, and cautioned that such attacks could eventually disrupt essential public services, including hospitals, police, and public transport.
Lepassaar urged European nations to increase cybersecurity investment and called for manufacturers to integrate security into product design from the start. The trend highlights a shift toward targeting internet-connected devices that control physical equipment rather than traditional data theft. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued long-term warnings regarding similar vulnerabilities in Internet of Things devices, such as security cameras and garage door systems.
