Photo: TY Lim / Shutterstock.com The FBI is warning organizations worldwide about cyberattacks targeting industrial refrigeration equipment and cold-chain monitoring systems, raising concerns about potential food losses, equipment damage and risks to public health.
In a joint cybersecurity advisory issued on November 5, 2026, the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) urged organizations to strengthen protections around these systems.
The warning, which follows a series of attacks on several supermarket chains and blood banks across Europe in recent months, covers equipment widely used across the healthcare, food and agriculture, chemical, and transportation sectors, including grocery stores, cold-storage facilities, and refrigerated transport services.
According to the agencies, malicious cyber actors are targeting electronic temperature controllers and commercial refrigeration controllers. Vulnerabilities in unpatched devices, weak security configurations and systems accessible through the internet can allow attackers to remotely manipulate operating settings.
The attackers may exploit authentication bypass weaknesses, inject malicious code or take advantage of poorly secured configurations.
Once inside a system, they could change temperature settings and force refrigeration units into continuous heating or defrost cycles. Such activity could result in significant inventory losses, shorten equipment service life and create potential fire hazards.
The agencies also warn that attackers could interfere with temperature monitoring, preventing operators from seeing actual conditions inside storage facilities. This could put food, medicines and other temperature-sensitive products at risk, potentially exposing consumers to unsafe products.
The joint advisory calls on organizations to review their refrigeration systems and implement several protective measures.
Among the recommendations are removing unnecessary internet exposure, separating operational technology networks from regular business networks, replacing default passwords and introducing strong authentication, including phishing-resistant multifactor authentication wherever possible.
Organizations are also urged to keep device firmware updated, replace equipment that is no longer supported by manufacturers and restrict access to authorized devices and IP addresses.
Additional recommendations include maintaining offline backups, monitoring network activity and establishing safe temperature limits with alerts for unexpected changes.
The FBI is urging organizations that rely on industrial refrigeration and cold-chain monitoring to review the guidance and report suspicious activity.
U.S. organizations can report incidents to CISA's 24-hour operations center or the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center. HHS has also provided a dedicated contact channel for healthcare organizations facing potential disruptions to medical supply chains.