Hackers hit French national blood bank

Re:Hackers hit French national blood bank by tedggh on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @08:18AM (#50365149)

This is easily fixed with data diodes. I can see future industrial appliances and other critical IoT devices with embedded units. You use the read/write port for initial configuration then the diode for permanent monitoring, making it physical impossible to send data to the equipment.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hackers hit French national blood bank by pbalau on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @08:29AM (#50365260)

And if you need to alter the initial settings, you do what? Also, your solution is negating one of the biggest benefits of remote control: less errors from tech on the ground.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hackers hit French national blood bank by barbazoo on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @08:40AM (#50365368)

A human makes the change locally. For example the manager in a grocery store.

Grocery chains are removing control from stores to HQ in all kinds of ways to cut cost, this is a symptom of that.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hackers hit French national blood bank by pbalau on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @12:21PM (#50368665)

The main reason to remove control from the "boots on the ground" is to prevent errors. Not cost cutting.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hackers hit French national blood bank by ocschwar on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @10:52PM (#50374955)

Also cost cutting.

HQ gets a time-based discount for electricity? Time for all the freezers to go into a deeper freeze. HQ gets a message from the Demand Response program asking for a curtailment? Time for the freezers to let the goods come closer to their safe higher temperatures.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Hackers hit French national blood bank by kotaKat on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @08:42AM (#50365394)

Something akin to Mikrotik's "device mode".

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/spaces/ROS/pages/93749258/Dev...

If I have to enable a privileged operation (like enable container support), I have to change a device-mode flag. To confirm it, I have to either physically push the Reset button on the device or pull the power from it physically within a set window of time.

Push the setting to the freezer but require a physical button press/power control action from someone locally to confirm the new setting change.

Have a big pop-up message on the HMI that says "TEMP CHANGE REQUEST: CURRENTLY 0C, REQUESTED 66C - OK?" so someone can yelp and go This doesn't look right! and call in the experts for help.

Is it perfect? No. Could it be feasible for some applications? Yes.

[ Parent | on HN ]