By Ahmed Abdelsalam
UK meat processing firms have been hit by cyber attacks after hackers targeted supermarket freezers across Europe, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) confirmed on Tuesday. The agency said the national impact is “minimal” and it is working with affected organisations.
Legacy technology with default passwords exploited
The attacks exploited legacy refrigeration technology connected to the internet with default passwords, NCSC chief executive Dr Richard Horne revealed. Speaking at the launch of the NCSC annual report in London, he said teams worked through the night to alert British firms with vulnerable systems exposed.
Handful of UK organisations affected
Dr Horne told BBC Radio 4 that a “handful” of UK organisations had been alerted and there were “a couple of instances” where vulnerable technology was exploited. He declined to attribute the attacks to a specific actor, saying it was too early for a definitive answer.
Warnings of AI-boosted attacks on critical infrastructure
The NCSC annual report warned that ransomware groups are “highly likely” to use artificial intelligence to target UK critical national infrastructure by 2028, with hostile states such as Russia and China routinely employing AI by then. Dr Horne said the UK has tolerated vulnerable technology for decades, describing it as “tech on the cheap.”
Call for investment in resilience
Dr Horne urged organisations to invest in renewal and security by design, warning that failure to act could lead to empty supermarket shelves and power blackouts. The NCSC incident management team received 1,831 cyber attack reports this year, with 337 requiring support and 80 nationally significant.
