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Confiks 3 hours ago [-]
So the author charitably calls the 2025 vulnerability a "login bypass", but it's much worse than that. The firmware included a "datetime-based password" mechanism: a built-in backdoor password, like it's the 90s again.
The original researcher published about this in August of this year [1], a year after reporting it, titling the report "Defrost the Food", which the attackers apparently took to be a good suggestion.
As the firmware is open for anyone to download [2], blurring the affected function seems more like an invitation to find out more. I know I was curious when the news about the fridges in France broke. The function's actually called "check_code_of_the_day", and this is the implementation:
I'm was super glad I could just copy/paste that code in my LLM-of-choice and it gave me a reasonable explanation of how to exploit it. Thank god an attacker couldn't do that.
amluto 1 hours ago [-]
This doesn’t require any fancy analysis. You can literally read the password off it — the last bit is an oddly decompiled string comparison.
SOLAR_FIELDS 3 hours ago [-]
Through my work I deal with grocery software and I can tell you that grocery software is ages behind the times. For most small retailers (small being a business owner with less than 10 stores in their retail chain, mostly local grocers) you are dealing with processes that would have been considered antique for the year 2000
josephg 3 hours ago [-]
It’s the same in a lot of sectors. Airlines. Electricity companies. Probably train lines. Banks. Fire services.
With all the disruption from AI on our industry, I can’t help but feel a little jealous.
Gigachad 2 hours ago [-]
AI enabled hackers are going to break everything that’s connected to the internet forcing it to move in to the modern era.
josephg 2 hours ago [-]
Disconnecting is also effective. Fridges don’t need to be on the internet.
Kina 2 hours ago [-]
What does AI have to do with this?
Gigachad 2 hours ago [-]
So much security in the past relied on "no one would bother to look in to this". We now have armies of bots relentlessly scanning over everything which is the main reason everything has been getting hacked over the last few months.
ryandrake 47 minutes ago [-]
I'm really hoping that if it comes to pass, millions of AI-based hacking agents running amok on the internet, exploiting every single thing they can find, will at long last finally cause companies to get their shit together and secure their systems.
Imagine if your neighborhood had a million autonomous door-opening drones randomly flying around identifying doors and entering them. It wouldn't take long for everyone to lock their doors.
Kina 2 hours ago [-]
I think this is irrelevant.
There is no evidence AI was used to do this and it feels like a random way to force AI into the conversation? It’s just spectacularly negligent behavior by people who think that they don’t have to trouble themselves with security, but want the convenience of having their stuff on the Internet for remote management.
This is just like the OPM hack 10 years ago.
eterm 2 hours ago [-]
AI is ruthlessly effective at finding vulnerabilities.
chrisweekly 2 hours ago [-]
into the modern era...
... or back into the dark ages
31carmichael 2 hours ago [-]
Electricity companies should be 100% air-gapped from any internet connection, whether or not they have outdated software.
Gigachad 1 hours ago [-]
You can do a one way link, sensors on infrastructure which emit data only but can not receive anything. Then another device like an ESP32 or whatever the industrial version is which reads the data and makes it available to the internet.
You now have the ability to remotely monitor the system but hacking it does not allow you to control anything. Though there is still a sizable amount of infrastructure which has no on site workers and needs to be remotely controlled.
procflora 2 hours ago [-]
There is plenty of room for antiquated process and technology in utilities that has nothing to do with grid operations, trust me. :)
SteveNuts 2 hours ago [-]
Maybe AI will be able to give us a better FTP server in these industries
procflora 2 hours ago [-]
We already have that it's called SFTP. ;)
Wait what do you mean you want to use a key to log in, our stuff doesn't support that.
SOLAR_FIELDS 2 hours ago [-]
I am reminded of this every time I fly Southwest Airlines
matthewdgreen 1 hours ago [-]
Grocery stores can be as behind the times as they want. I'm worried about hospital fridges.
kevin_thibedeau 2 hours ago [-]
I know someone at a 100 store operation and they're equally working in the stone age.
Thaxll 3 hours ago [-]
No one at Danfoss got alerts than sudently hundred of fridges entered defrost mode? Reminds me of those computer you see at stores running weird ms-dos software.
cwillu 3 hours ago [-]
“With our new internet-connected refrigerator line, you can get notifications online if a bunch of equipment malfunctions.”
“Why would a bunch of equipment malfunction?”
“Because you plugged it into the internet, you dolt.”
pixl97 1 hours ago [-]
Many of these things have cycles where they clear frost or otherwise remove moisture from the system by getting hot. What you're talking about is something that could be common. It's the extended heating that starts causing problems, but if the software is taken over the alerts may no be sending.
Grimeton 2 hours ago [-]
>85% ran software with known security flaws. That includes 527 older controllers Danfoss no longer supports. Only 195 had every known fix.
As long as the fridges are used the controller has to be supported.
This isn't a raspberry pi $50 a pop...
jacquesm 2 hours ago [-]
Oh, great idea. We should do that for software: force manufacturers to support their software with bugfixes as long as it is in use. And just bugfixes, the marketing department can stay out of it.
eterm 2 hours ago [-]
Things will only meaningfully change when insurance companies stop paying out when reasonable steps weren't taken by companies to protect themselves.
esikich 2 hours ago [-]
As someone who has worked with small and medium sized businesses, reasonable is extremely variable. I'm dealing with a small business right now that can't upgrade their perfectly good computers because of TPM issues. On one hand, I kind of get the reasoning behind it, but how can you hold a business of 10 people accountable for not knowing how to buy a computer that will be reasonably future proof? Every business needs IT on hand? I think that's asking too much. On the otherhand, you should know the tools you need to run your business. There's no fine line.
ryandrake 43 minutes ago [-]
I think if you can afford computers for your business but you can't afford to keep them secure, then you can't afford computers for your business.
esikich 23 minutes ago [-]
What about plumbing and electrical? Do you need to employ those as well?
gz5 3 hours ago [-]
fridges are very reliable. but let's IoT them anyways so they can theoretically notify us if there is a problem.
so of course that creates/enables the problem and doesn't notify us.
deliciously ironic and rottingly sad.
this case was egregious - built-in backdoor pw - but that is downstream of the decisions to IoT them and to default them to listen on the network.
esikich 2 hours ago [-]
Electricity is expensive. Grocery stores work on extremely thin margins with stock that literally turns rotten. These are physical devices that need maintenance. Their failure is often catastrophic. Grocery store workers are not equipped to fix an HVAC system. Someone needs to monitor for preventative maintenance.
I can't understand the mindset that would treat this as a trivial problem. What's sad is your confidence in giving this situation a 5 second take and declaring the whole thing stupid. Yes, security was clearly an issue, but saying that monitoring of critical infrastructure is sad is bizarre.
AngryData 2 hours ago [-]
Remote monitoring by itself is not a problem, but remote control is and has no benefits. You can't change the temperature of or defrost a freezer without removing everything from it, and if you can remove everything from it someone is already there the change the settings. And it takes extra work to enable remote controlling of a refrigerator system over just providing temperature readings.
And it still isn't going to save electricity. The only thing it can do is warn of a failure and tell you that you got like 20 minutes to start moving food before it has to be trashed for exceeding safe food handling temperatures.
esikich 1 hours ago [-]
I mean, say you have 30 grocery stores, are you saying you shouldn't be able to build templates to deploy? You gonna have a guy drive all over the place updating schedules 24/7?
ninalanyon 2 hours ago [-]
> workers are not equipped to fix an HVAC system.
But they are perfectly capable of checking the temperature. After all the fridges and freezers are restocked multiple times a day so even if one failed it wouldn't have time to get warm before someone should notice.
Ad there are other ways of monitoring such as having an audible or visual alarm.
esikich 2 hours ago [-]
Do you think grocery stores are 24/7? How often do you think these checks happen? Do you think it's the best way for those employees to spend their time? How often would these checks need to be performed to show statistical significance? Do you have reason to believe these things have never been thought about by people who run grocery stores? What are the labor requirements in a grocery store to run effectively?
hmartin 2 hours ago [-]
I wish I could upvote this comment more
gz5 2 hours ago [-]
good points and all the more reason to monitor in reliable, safe manner?
icehawk 2 hours ago [-]
This isn't your single compressor/evaporator/condenser coil appliance that sits in your kitchen. These are far larger and more complex systems.
The AK-SM 800A can control 170 different refrigeration devices. This is more akin to the entire freezer section (and probably meat and dairy) in your supermarket.
vlovich123 2 hours ago [-]
How is it a bad idea to want to automate maintenance of the fridges? It doesn’t require a bad implementation.
drillsteps5 3 hours ago [-]
To be fair, their entire threat model was likely "who TF would want to break in to change the settings on a thermostat on a fridge at a grocery store".
A valid question which has yet to be answered (at least not publicly).
pstuart 3 hours ago [-]
Some threat actor that demands quick payment or their perishables perish?
drillsteps5 2 hours ago [-]
It's a fridge. In a grocery store. You just get an employee to adjust the thermostat dial. How would the hackers demand payment if all you need to do is turn the dial back to "frozen"???
Edit: Yes i know the commercial fridges do not have "dials" and it's more involved. Still, if you have physical access to the thing, there's nothing that can be done from the outside that you can't revert.
masfuerte 2 hours ago [-]
> Still, if you have physical access to the thing, there's nothing that can be done from the outside that you can't revert.
Sure, with time and expertise. How does the average employee adjust the virtual thermostat on fifty network-controlled fridges before the food goes bad?
drillsteps5 2 hours ago [-]
I don't know about your grocery store but the ones I've been to have maybe 5 on the shopping floor and probably a few more in the back. They all have physical controls which (I'm assuming) override the controller if something goes wrong. So if big bad hacker says "I'm gon' turn y'all fridges off if you don't pay me" it's not a threat, it's a silly joke.
Unless of course they turn it off without telling the businesses so the products go bad because nobody's watching over the weekend or smth. But then again, why would someone want to do that. I wonder.
xp84 3 hours ago [-]
Sadly, I guess they won't have to worry about patching this issue now that everything's been looted and burned down.
HPsquared 3 hours ago [-]
Possibly, for a brief moment, the food was nicely cooked.
tantalor 2 hours ago [-]
Intermediate value theorem
dointheatl 2 hours ago [-]
> everything's been looted and burned down
There may yet be hope that a few stores survived. Possibly even a village or hamlet. In the vast rubblescape that is now France.
achillean 3 hours ago [-]
From 2017 through 2022 there was a large increase in the number of exposed refrigerators:
Over the past few years it has fluctuated but not the same continued growth as before. If you don't have a Shodan account you can see a chart on twitter:
When looters smash the glass door, it's pretty obvious the vulnerability has been there for YEARS!
tantalor 2 hours ago [-]
Why bother breaking through the glass front, when most places of business have a very obvious back door just waiting.
willvk 2 hours ago [-]
So this is the real reason they're rioting. I'd be pissed too.
throwaway27448 2 hours ago [-]
Sadly no, it's just the same old incoherence over the point of the state
Cameri 3 hours ago [-]
Does this amount to gross negligence?
seekup 3 hours ago [-]
even worse: it's grocer's negligence
emot 3 hours ago [-]
hard to say who’s to blame: stores, installers or the vendor. most of these dashboards sat online for months, only 195 of 1,331 had every fix, and 76% went offline within days of the attack (disconnecting was possible all along, it seems).
UltraSane 3 hours ago [-]
Not isolating the refrigerator API from the Internet seems very negligent.
jon128 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
reincoder 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
anonym29 3 hours ago [-]
List of legitimate reasons for a refrigerator, an oven, a stove, a washing or drying machine, a microwave, a coffee maker, a sink, a garbage disposal, a toilet, a shower or bathtub, or any other home appliance to be connected to the internet:
icehawk 2 hours ago [-]
The device in the article isn't a home appliance.
esikich 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
l-mdev 2 hours ago [-]
suck it jian yang
3 hours ago [-]
NordStreamYacht 3 hours ago [-]
Backdoors on French fridges? I think they have a bigger problem right now with their front doors.
The original researcher published about this in August of this year [1], a year after reporting it, titling the report "Defrost the Food", which the attackers apparently took to be a good suggestion.
As the firmware is open for anyone to download [2], blurring the affected function seems more like an invitation to find out more. I know I was curious when the news about the fridges in France broke. The function's actually called "check_code_of_the_day", and this is the implementation:
[1] https://www.claroty.com/team82/research/freeze-the-controlle...[2] https://www.danfoss.com/en-us/service-and-support/downloads/...
With all the disruption from AI on our industry, I can’t help but feel a little jealous.
Imagine if your neighborhood had a million autonomous door-opening drones randomly flying around identifying doors and entering them. It wouldn't take long for everyone to lock their doors.
There is no evidence AI was used to do this and it feels like a random way to force AI into the conversation? It’s just spectacularly negligent behavior by people who think that they don’t have to trouble themselves with security, but want the convenience of having their stuff on the Internet for remote management.
This is just like the OPM hack 10 years ago.
You now have the ability to remotely monitor the system but hacking it does not allow you to control anything. Though there is still a sizable amount of infrastructure which has no on site workers and needs to be remotely controlled.
Wait what do you mean you want to use a key to log in, our stuff doesn't support that.
“Why would a bunch of equipment malfunction?”
“Because you plugged it into the internet, you dolt.”
As long as the fridges are used the controller has to be supported.
This isn't a raspberry pi $50 a pop...
so of course that creates/enables the problem and doesn't notify us.
deliciously ironic and rottingly sad.
this case was egregious - built-in backdoor pw - but that is downstream of the decisions to IoT them and to default them to listen on the network.
I can't understand the mindset that would treat this as a trivial problem. What's sad is your confidence in giving this situation a 5 second take and declaring the whole thing stupid. Yes, security was clearly an issue, but saying that monitoring of critical infrastructure is sad is bizarre.
And it still isn't going to save electricity. The only thing it can do is warn of a failure and tell you that you got like 20 minutes to start moving food before it has to be trashed for exceeding safe food handling temperatures.
But they are perfectly capable of checking the temperature. After all the fridges and freezers are restocked multiple times a day so even if one failed it wouldn't have time to get warm before someone should notice.
Ad there are other ways of monitoring such as having an audible or visual alarm.
The AK-SM 800A can control 170 different refrigeration devices. This is more akin to the entire freezer section (and probably meat and dairy) in your supermarket.
A valid question which has yet to be answered (at least not publicly).
Edit: Yes i know the commercial fridges do not have "dials" and it's more involved. Still, if you have physical access to the thing, there's nothing that can be done from the outside that you can't revert.
Sure, with time and expertise. How does the average employee adjust the virtual thermostat on fifty network-controlled fridges before the food goes bad?
Unless of course they turn it off without telling the businesses so the products go bad because nobody's watching over the weekend or smth. But then again, why would someone want to do that. I wonder.
There may yet be hope that a few stores survived. Possibly even a village or hamlet. In the vast rubblescape that is now France.
https://trends.shodan.io/search?query=http.favicon.hash:-853...
Over the past few years it has fluctuated but not the same continued growth as before. If you don't have a Shodan account you can see a chart on twitter:
https://x.com/shodanhq/status/2110526116679021055