There has been a new rash of cyberattacks on Europe's supermarket fridges and freezers. After attacks on French refrigeration systems last month, the latest attacks ranged from Sweden to Netherlands to Belgium to Ireland. The perpetrators are unknown and the motives are equally obscure. There have been no extortion or political demands.
Why would anyone want to spoil thousands of euros worth of food? What would be the point? And why just a few supermarkets out of the hundreds that most of the supermarket chains that could.have ben targeted? The randomness of it all maybe points to the antics of nerdy kids with too much time on their hands. Most (all?) of the attacks targeted Danish temperature-control system manufacturer Danfoss, so a disgruntled employee or ex-employee? Why no statement of complaint, then? I suppose a maverick state like Russia, North Korea, Iran or China could be behind it, but it's a very strange choice of targets in that case.
The other things that strikes me is: why do fridges and freezers need to be internet-enabled anyway? The Internet of Things is expanding apace these days, but sometimes it seems to be doing it for no good reason, technology for its own sake. It's easy to change the temperature on supermarket fridges - even twenty or thirty supermarket fridges - manually. And how of often would it ever need changing anyway? Is there really a compelling need to have a fridge AI-controlled?
I see this as just another example of technology leading and humans scrambling to keep up. Other examples are the whole AI thing, 5G cellphone systems, cloning, and probably many more. I'm not anti-technology, it just seems like some technological changes are introduced for no particular reason, solutions in search of a problem, just because we can. Blame it.on capitalism if you like (and you may be right), but it seems to me that more oversight andnregulation is needed. However, that's not how 21st century capitalism rolls.
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