Hackers attack GDO: Palazzo Chigi, limited impact and no risk to health

No alarm over the hacker attacks, but the utmost attention. This is what Palazzo Chigi announced at the end of an emergency meeting on the subject of the hacker attacks on the refrigeration facilities of large-scale retail.

The meeting was attended by the Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Alfredo Mantovano, the Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, and the director of the National Cybersecurity Agency.

In recent days in Italy, hackers attacked 4 points of sale of the Sicilian chain Radenza, master franchisee of Coop, a collective catering operator in Tuscany, and a frozen food producer in Emilia-Romagna. In other European countries, hacker attacks on retailers' cold chains have been more extensive and caused heavy damage. In France, an incursion affected more than 700 large-scale retail outlets. In Sweden and Estonia, the intruders directly raised the temperatures up to 50 degrees.

Obsolete protection

The initial investigations, according to a statement from Palazzo Chigi, "show that in Italy the impact of the attacks is currently strongly limited: only a few commercial units have been affected, compared with the thousands present throughout the country, most of which are still equipped with obsolete security systems, with interfaces directly exposed to the Internet and deficiencies in authentication mechanisms. Most of the distribution chain, on the other hand, appears to be equipped with up-to-date protection systems capable of repelling malicious intrusions.”

No cases of risk to citizens' health attributable to thawing phenomena have emerged. However, “the Government, in all its branches, will continue to act along four lines of action: monitoring and analysing the threat, an activity that began several months ago; maintaining constant dialogue with suppliers and sellers in the food supply chain; identifying and promptly notifying exposed entities; and disseminating preventive communications and guidance on risk mitigation in the sectors concerned on a large scale”.

Cybersecurity in the shopping basket

For its part, Federdistribuzione, which took part in the meeting of the National Cybersecurity Agency with the heads of the intelligence agencies, announced that “we are following the situation very closely, but without causing alarm: at present, we are not recording any critical issues in the distribution networks of our medium-sized and large companies, and we continue to work in close synergy with the relevant authorities to ensure the security of our operations and the full protection of consumers. Cybersecurity is a strategic safeguard for our companies, which in recent years have made significant investments to strengthen their digital infrastructures”.
Carlo Alberto Buttarelli, president of Federdistribuzione, stressed that “as Federdistribuzione, we will continue to maintain a high level of vigilance, promoting among member companies the ongoing updating of best security practices and the adoption of any operational guidance provided by the relevant authorities”.

This article was translated from the original Italian version with the assistance of artificial intelligence. In case of discrepancies, please refer to the original Italian version.