The head of the EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) has warned that household appliances could be hackers’ next target after recent cyberattacks on supermarket refrigerators in several European countries, and called for greater European investment against rising cyber threats.
ENISA Executive Director Juhan Lepassaar made the comments in a Tuesday interview with Agence France-Presse in Brussels, where he was releasing the Athens-based agency’s latest biennial report on the state of EU cybersecurity. “Security should not and cannot be an afterthought,” he said. “Today it is refrigerators that are being attacked; tomorrow it could be routers, and the day after that it could be all kinds of household appliances, and so on.”
Supermarkets in at least 12 European countries were hit in October and November, with France the most severely affected. From 11 to 12 October, hundreds of French supermarkets were attacked, abnormally raising temperatures in store refrigerators and freezers. Many had to discard all perishable food and suffered financial losses.
Lepassaar said every security incident can be avoided, but asked whether the necessary money will be spent. “Cybersecurity is not cheap,” he said. He urged manufacturers to design security in from the start rather than patch products after they reach the market.
He argued that cybersecurity matters because every service ordinary people rely on includes a digital element and potentially a piece of code. If that code is unprotected, it can be hacked. In the worst case, he said, essential public services could fail: police might not arrive in time, fire services might not deploy normally, hospitals might not function, and transport might not move people safely from one place to another. “These are services we depend on for normal life and that run 24 hours a day,” he said. “Once they fail, the impact on society is immediate.”
Lepassaar welcomed new EU cybersecurity rules expected to take full effect next year. The EU also plans to double ENISA’s staff and resources. He said that even then capacity would “never be enough,” but called the increase a good start.